
Glass " BS^// 
Book. }^G7y 
Copyright l^°. - 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE 



TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE 



CONCERNING THE 



Assumptions of Destructive Criticism 



BY 

S. E. WISHARD, D.D. 



4u^S^ 



Cincinnati, O. 

MONFORT & CO. 

1909 



\^ 



^t-- 



Copyright, 1909 
By S. E. WISHARD, D.D, 



.IBFIARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDies Received 

JUN 23 m% 

CopyriifHt ti 




FOREWORD. 

This booklet is sent out 

To all Sabbath-school teachers, 

To the young people of the Christian 

churches, 
And to all believers in the living Word. 



The work of the destructive critics has 
been widely disseminated in current Hter- 
ature. Magazines, secular new^spapers, and 
some religious papers are giving currency to 
these critical attacks on the Word of God. 
The young people of our churches are ex- 
posed to the insidious poison of this skep- 
ticism. It comes to them under the guise 
of a broader and more liberal scholarship. 
They have neither the time nor the equip- 
ment to enter the field of criticism, nor is 
this work demanded of them. 

While abler pens are meeting and an- 
swering the questions raised by destructive 
critics, something may be said that will clear 



4 Foreword, 

away the fog produced by them and enable 
young Christians to come directly to the 
truth. 

Hence this booklet is an attempt to "give 
God a chance" to have his say. The tes- 
timony presented is on the divine plan of 
giving, '' Precept upon precept, precept upon 
precept, line upon line, line upon line/' " lest 
we forget." 

There has been no attempt to cover the 
whole ground of destructive criticism in the 
brief compass of this booklet. It will be 
enough to permit God to answer ; hence, in 
the following pages he speaks for himself. 
We are content that his voice shall be heard. 

S. E. WiSHARD. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

I. Our Attitude Toward De- 
structive Criticism 9 

II. Shoui^d RepIvY be Made? 17 

III. Was Moses a Literary Fic- 

tion? 25 

IV. Were Christ and the Apos- 

Ti,Es Mistaken ? 39 

V. The Attack on the Book of 

Leviticus 59 

VI. Assumptions Concerning the 

Book oe Isaiah 73 

VII. God's RepIvY to These Assump- 
tions 83 

VIII. The Historicity oe the Book 

OE Jonah 97 

IX. Radicai, Exposition 107 

X. God His Own Interpreter. .. 115 



OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD DE- 
STRUCTIVE CRITICISM. 



''Be ye therefore followers of God, as 
dear children; and walk in love, as Christ 
also hath loved us/' Eph. v. i, 2. 

''Be patient toward all men. See that 
none render evil for evil unto any man: hut 
ever follozv that zvhich is good, both among 
yourselves and to all men.'' i Thess. v. 

"He that believeth shall not make haste." 
Isa. xxviii. 16. 

"The zv'orks of his hands are verity and 
judgment; all his commandments are sure. 
They stand fast forever and ever, and are 
done in truth and uprightness." Psa. cxi. 

7,8. 

"My counsel shall stand, and I zvill do all 
my pleasure." Isa. xlvi. 10. 



OUR ATTITUDE. 

The attitude which God's people should 
assume toward destructive criticism has 
been questioned. It should certainly be a 
position of calm patience, that can deliber- 
ately weigh valid testimony, and abide by 
the decision of intelligent judgment. The 
history and life of the Church for nearly 
two thousand years should go for some- 
thing. They are not to be sv/ept away by 
the blufif, the egoism of what claims to be 
the only ''Expert Scholarship." 

There is no occasion for a panic. Truth 
that has been, and has builded noble, goodly 
life, is truth still, and ever will be. It is not 
a time for denunciation. The assumptions 
of the destructive critics are so enormous, 
so radically revolutionary, so directly aimed 
at vital truth, that one's heart is stirred. 
There is danger of yielding to the heat of a 
righteous indignation. It is not well to lose 
one's intellectual and moral poise, even in a 
contest involving the honor of God and the 
welfare of immortal souls. But ''he that 
believeth shall not make haste." 



10 The Testimony of the Bible 

The lovers of the Book that has safely 
passed through every storm of antagonism 
that the Prince of Darkness could evoke, 
need not now be moved to hasty utterance. 
The eternal foundations of truth, like him 
who laid them, are ''the same, yesterday, 
to-day and forever.'' The Book, with all its 
precious doctrines, is here to stay. It can 
not be destroyed. Fire has not burned it, 
water has not quenched it, the edicts of 
tyrants and popes have not been able to 
break its power. The Church of God can 
calmly rest on ''the word of God, which 
liveth and abideth forever." ( i Peter i. 23.) 
Hence we may calmly move on undisturbed 
in our work. 

Further, our attitude should be marked 
by an intelligent understanding of the ques- 
tion involved. It is not a question of fair, 
honest criticism, for the purpose of a deeper 
knowledge of God and his truth. All rev- 
erent and helpful study of the Word of God 
is critical, and is the kind of criticism that 
the Book challenges. Our Lord invites it, 
and urges us to "search the Scriptures," 
which testify of him. 

It is assumed by the rationalistic critics 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. il 

that we have entered a new era, that the 
Bible has never been studied until within 
recent years. This is an assumption un- 
worthy of scientific scholarship. Critics 
who have not sought to destroy the Word 
of God, but, by thorough investigation, to 
determine its claims, have been at work on 
the Scriptures in all the past, seeking to 
know the mind of the Spirit. There is, 
and ever has been, a legitimate study of 
the Bible. Hence, there are absolutely no 
grounds for the assumption of the rational- 
ists. The Church of Christ is not opposed 
to the application of the best methods and 
best scholarship in the investigation of re- 
vealed truth. Indeed, the Protestant Church 
has ever been the mother of the highest edu- 
cation, and has had an open ear to the call 
of God — ''Come, let us reason together." 

It is well to understand that the poorly- 
concealed purpose of the school of higher 
critics is not to press the just and holy 
claims of God's Word on the human con- 
science, but to eliminate the supernatural 
from it. The Christian Church should un- 
derstand this. If atheistic scientists can 
construct a universe v/ithout God, by evo- 



12 The Testimony of the Bible 

lutionary processes, and the critics can con- 
struct a Bible without the supernatural, "the 
wisdom of this world" will have pretty 
thoroughly disposed of God. 

In the attitude of the Church toward de- 
structive criticism, sometimes called histo- 
rical, or constructive, we must not fail to 
discover its bearing on the character of 
Christ. For the final conflict of all skep- 
ticism of every grade and quality is in ref- 
erence to the person and work of Christ. 
The elimination of the supernatural from 
the Bible would be an invalidation of 
Christ's claims and testimony. It would 
place him before the world as a false 
teacher, a fraud, a charlatan. Loyalty to 
the Word, and to the Incarnate Word, de- 
mands, therefore, that we should clearly 
understand the end to which this rational- 
ism is drifting. For Christ's testimony con- 
cerning the Old Testament Scriptures, which 
will be presented later in this discussion, is 
so thoroughly in conflict with the modern 
critical assumptions that it must be disposed 
of by those claiming expert scholarship. In 
the attempt to accomplish that feat, they put 
our Lord under such limitations as would 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 13 

rob him of his character as Teacher and 
Redeemer. 

The ''experts'' are logically driven to one 
of two conclusions : either that Christ did 
not know the facts of the Old Testament 
Scriptures, which he believed and was sent 
to teach, or, knowing the facts, he deemed 
it not important to teach them. 

The first assumption puts our Savior on 
the basis of a fallible hmnan teacher, and 
nothing more. The second assumption con- 
tradicts all the professions of the critics. 
For they affirm to-day that the professed 
discoveries of the mistaken views of the 
Bible are of the utmost importance, and as 
honest men they are in conscience obliged 
to make them known, while claiming that 
Christ did not make them known. 

Shall we assume that these views, which 
they deem so important to-day, were of no 
importance when the Church of Christ first 
took form? We may ask, what estimate 
should we have of Christ, who, knowing 
his people were in error as to the authorship 
and origin of the Scriptures, would leave 
them in darkness for more than eighteen 
hundred years ? Is it to be assumed that he 



14 The Testimony of the Bible 

would wait through the long centuries for 
the coming of critics to enlighten his people ? 
That is what we are logically asked to ac- 
cept at their hands. It is thus made clear 
that the issue of this conflict, as in all the 
past, is narrowed down to the person and 
character of our Savior. It is well to face 
the issue calmly, and with a clear under- 
standing of what is pending. Did Christ 
know truth? Was he honest? Hence, the 
attitude of the Church should be taken in 
view of the trend of modern critical dis- 
cussion. 



II. 

SHOULD REPLY BE MADE? 



*' If the fGundations be destroyed, what 
can the righteous dof Psa. xi, 5. 

''Prove all things: hold fast that which is 
good/' I Thess. v. 21, 

''Buy the tr^tth and sell it not" Prov, 
xxiii. 2^, 

"Beloved, ivhen I gave all diligence to 
write unto you of the common salvation, it 
was needful for me to write unto you and 
exhort you that you should earnestly con- 
tend for the faith that was once delivered 
unto the saints/' Jude j. 

"Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and 
hold the traditions which ye have been 
taught, whether by word or our epistle/' 
2 Thess. ii. 15. 

"I am set for the defense of the gospel/' 
Paul, Phil. i. ly. 



SHOULD REPLY BE MADE? 

It is a question among earnest Christian 
men, who are busily engaged in the work of 
the Master, as to whether we should turn 
aside long enough to make reply to the de- 
structive critics. It is affirmed that, as the 
Word of God has already passed through 
all the attacks that have been made upon it, 
it will defend itself in the future as in the 
past — that our duty is to preach the gospel. 
Certainly the victories of the gospel are a 
noble defense of its truth and pov\^er to save. 
There should be no respite from this work. 
But there are vast multitudes of people that 
permit the critics to do their thinking for 
them. They are not well informed concern- 
ing the Scriptures, and consequently are not 
prepared to repel the attacks of skepticism, 
nor to reply to the specious arguments or 
positive assumptions of the critics. These 
multitudes are in danger of casting aside 
the Word of God, and missing the offer of 
eternal life. 

The fact of the increased activity of the 



i8 The Testimony of the Bible 

enemies of the truth must be known to 
Christian people. Their organized and per- 
sistent use of the press has gained for them 
a wide hearing. Shall the Christian people 
deny themselves this instrumentality of get- 
ting a hearing for God and his truth before 
the world ? Would not silence be construed 
by the world as meaning that the cause dear 
to the heart of God's people is indefensible? 

It should be known to all lovers of the 
truth that the skepticism widely sown by the 
destructive critics has entered the Protes- 
tant Church and many of our institutions of 
learning. 

"Read the utterances of representative 
men and teachers in her communion, who 
deny the Incarnation, repudiate vicarious 
sacrifice, make light of the story of the res- 
urrection, and refine the risen Son of God 
into nothing more than the spirit and es- 
sence of truth ; or, at most, the disembodied 
ghost of a man who called himself a Mes- 
siah, mistaken in his claims, but authoritative 
in his morals.'' (Rev. I. M. Holdeman.) 

The author of this statement refers also 
to the fact that there are ''modern profes- 



Concerning Destructive Criticism, 19 

sors of theology who convict the very 
prophets whom they hold np as exemplars 
of righteousness, of absolute literary fraud, 
and deliberate piracy." They ''demonstrate 
with cool precision that the higher critics of 
to-day are better informed concerning the 
mistakes of Moses than was he who claimed 
that Moses wrote of him ; and prove to their 
own satisfaction and the belief of many fol- 
lowers that Jesus Christ, our Lord, was lim- 
ited in intelligence, and would, if he were 
here to-day, deny some of the statements he 
once so unqualifiedly made." 

We may not shut our eyes to the fact 
that many of our colleges are more or less 
infected with this rationalistic criticism. 
Some of our theological professors have 
substituted the theory of evolution for the 
Scriptural doctrine of creation by the Word 
of God. Our young men preparing for the 
work of the ministry are under the influence 
and instruction of some of these teachers 
here in our own country. 

It is a matter for thanksgiving that we 
have literary and theological institutions into 
which the destructive critics have never en- 



20 The Testimony of the Bible 

tered — institutions that stand for the Word 
of God as given by the Holy Spirit, and be- 
lieved in by God's servants in the past and 
to-day. 

We do well to recognize the further fact 
concerning the effort to eliminate the super- 
natural from the Bible, that the work of the 
rationalists has permeated the literature of 
the day. In this age of reading fiction, that 
form of literature has become a convenient 
vehicle for taking everything out of the 
hands of Providence. It has become easy 
to leave God out of his universe and sup- 
plant him with the heroic in man. Hence, 
the literary appetite, ever craving the human 
instead of the divine, turns away from the 
truth that confronts the conscience of the 
reader with God and his claims. 

For the defense of truth we have the ex- 
ample of prophets, apostles, and Christ him- 
self. Much of the work of the prophets 
of the Old Testament was devoted to the 
exposure of the "New Thought'' of their 
times. Moses dealt thoroughly with the 
new theology that asserted: ''These be thy 
gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out 



Concerning Destructive Criticism, 21 

of the land of Egypt." The heresy was 
ended as suddenly as it was introduced. 

The Epistle to the Galatians was Paul's 
reply to the Judaizing teachers who would 
substitute ceremonials for the doctrine of 
justification by faith. His Epistle to the 
Ephesians was a constructive work, in an- 
sv/er to Jewish prejudice and teaching, in 
which he set forth the unity of Jews and 
Gentiles in one Church, which is the body 
of Christ. In his Epistle to the Corinthians 
he answered their false views of marriage. 
He shamed their partisan spirit, in which 
some claimed to be of Paul, some of Apollos, 
some of Christ. He labored most earnestly 
to convince them of their false views con- 
cerning the resurrection, and dealt faithfully 
with the errorists concerning the inquiry 
that was coming to the Church through 
their magnifying and perverting the use of 
the gift of tongues. He showed them a 
more excellent way. 

There should be no turning aside from 
preaching a full and free gospel, nor should 
there be an}^ halting in its defense, or against 
the effort to eliminate the supernatural from 



22 The Testimony of the Bible 

the Word of God. The critical work that 
logically leaves us a Savior ignorant of the 
Scriptures, or, if knowing them, afraid to 
meet Jewish prejudice by correcting their 
mistakes, should be kindly, candidly, and 
manfully met by those to whom the truth 
has given life. 



III. 

WAS MOSES "A LITERARY 
FICTION"? 



''God called unto him out of the midst of 
the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he 
said, Here am /. ^ >5^ ^ Come now, there- 
fore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that 
thou may est bring forth my people, the chil- 
dren of Israel, out of Egypt!' Bxod. Hi. 
4, 10, 

''And afterward Moses and Aaron went 
in and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord 
God of Israel, Let my people go!' Bxod. 

V. I. 

"Moses called for all the elders of Israel, 
and said unto them, Draw out and take you 
a lamb according to your families, and kill 
the passover. ^ ^ * Arid the children of 
Israel did according to the word of Moses. 
^ ^ :¥ And the children of Israel jour- 
neyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six 
hundred thousand on foot that were men, 
besides children!' Bxod. xii. 21, 55, j/. 

"And the Lord said unto Moses, Write 
thou these zvords: for after the tenor of 
these words I have made a covenant zvith 
thee and with Israel!' Bxod. xxxiv. 27. 

"And it came to pass, when Moses had 
made an end of zvriting the zvords of this 
lazv in a book, until they were finished, that 
Moses commanded the Levites, which bare 
the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying. 
Take this book of the law and put it in the 
side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord 
your God, that it may be there for a witness 
against thee!' Deut. xxxL 24-26. 



WAS MOSES "A LITERARY 
FICTION"? 

We turn now to the assumption that 
Moses v/as not the author, under God, of 
the Pentateuch. The destructive critics do 
not agree among themselves as to the origin 
of the Pentateuch. Dates and authors are 
variously adjusted among those claiming to 
be experts. There is, however, agreement 
on one point, that Moses did not write the 
Pentateuch. It is affirmed that his name 
has been attached to it to give it authority, 
because many of the events recorded and 
much of the history took place during the 
period of Moses' life and in connection with 
his influence. But the critics place the 
record of those events almost altogether 
after the exile, between nine hundred and a 
thousand years after the time of Moses. 

It was once affirmed that writing was not 
used in the days of Moses, and therefore he 
could not have written the five books that 
claim him as their author. But the fact now 
brought to light, and conceded by the critics 
and all well-informed scholars, that writing 



26 The Testimony of the Bible 

antedated Moses by many centuries, has 
swept out of existence that objection. But 
the question is still raised as to the Mosaic 
authorship of the Pentateuch. It is said in 
reply : 

First — The Holy Spirit declares by the 
mouth of Stephen that ''Moses was learned 
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was 
mighty in words and deeds." Acts vii. 22. 

Writing was long known to and practiced 
by the Egyptians, hence the man trained in 
all the wisdom of the Egyptians was com- 
petent to write the Pentateuch. 

Second — The Pentateuch very definitely 
claims Moses as its author, not once or 
twice, but many times, all through these 
writings. 

"The Lord said unto Moses, Write this 
for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in 
the ears of Joshua, for I will utterly put out 
the remembrance of Amalek from under 
heaven." Exod. xvii. 14. This was not the 
law, parts of which even some of the critics 
concede that Moses wrote. It was God's 
judgment against Amalek. But it was writ- 
ten in a book. What book? The inspired 
Scriptures say it was written here in Ex- 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 27 

odus xvii. 14. And again it was repeated 
in Deut. xxv. 19, and that Moses wrote it. 

In the twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus 
Moses has given an account of God's call 
to him, to Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the 
seventy elders, to come up to Horeb. Moses 
was called into the immediate presence of 
God, while the others remained at a dis- 
tance. After his interview with Jehovah it 
is written : " Moses came and told the people 
all the words of the Lord. * ^ ^ And 
Moses wrote all the zvords of the Lord/' 
Exod. xxiv. 3, 4. 

In the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus 
God is represented as giving definite instruc- 
tions to Moses concerning worship, at the 
conclusion of which ''the Lord said unto 
Moses, Write thou these words, for after 
the tenor of these words I have made a 
covenant with thee and with Israel.'' Exod. 
xxxiv. 2y. 

We turn to the positive statement in Deu- 
teronomy xxxi. 9. The chapter opens with 
the declaration that ''Moses spake these 
words unto all Israel," giving an extended 
account of what the words were. In the 
ninth verse it is stated : * ^ ^ ''And 



28 The Testimony of the Bible 

Moses wrote this law and delivered it unto 
the priests and unto all the elders of Israel." 
What became of that writing of Moses? 
Was it lost? Or is the statement false? 
And did sorrte later writer forge the state- 
ment, attributing the writing to Moses, to 
give weight and authority to the forgery? 
To ask the question is to answer it. '' Moses 
wrote all the words of the Lord." 

In the twenty-fourth verse in this same 
chapter in Deuteronomy it is stated that 
''Moses had made an end of writing the 
words of this law in a book." Yet the 
critics teach that this book, Deuteronomy, 
was not written until after the exile, almost 
a thousand years after the events narrated. 
Does not critical credulity make larger de- 
mands than are laid on faith? 

The summing up of the book of Num- 
bers, of what had been said and written in 
the book, is stated in the last chapter and 
last verse, namely, that ''these are the com- 
mandments and the judgments which the 
Lord commanded by the hand of Moses 
unto the children of Israel." Again and 
again it is affirmed in the Pentateuch that 
God commanded Moses to write, and that 



Concerning Destructive Criticism, 29 

he did write, but the critics affirm that the 
hand of Moses had nothing to do with pro- 
ducing the books of the Pentateuch — that 
they w^ere written after the exile! 

Not only does the Pentateuch distinctly 
teach the Mosaic authorship of the five 
books of Moses, appropriately so called, but 
all the Old Testament saints entertained the 
opinion which the Jewish people and the 
Christian Church hold to-day, that God 
spake to Moses, and that Moses committed 
to writing the messages that God gave him 
and commanded him to write, embracing the 
story of God's miracles, his instruction and 
dealings with them in the wilderness. 

We find the critics contradicted in the 
Scriptures from Joshua to Malachi. To 
Joshua God said: ''As I was with ]^Ioses, 
so will I be with thee." (Joshua i. 5.) 
Eight times in the first chapter of the book 
of Joshua God accredits Moses with having 
received and having given the law to Joshua 
and the people. 

The Pentateuch is the book which God, 
speaking to Joshua, calls '' the law which my 
servant Moses commanded thee" (Joshua 
i. 7), and it was so accepted by Joshua. 



30 The Testimony of the Bible 

Was he mistaken? or the critics? He had 
long enjoyed most intimate relations with 
Moses, and knew what Moses had written 
by the command of God. 

David affirms that God had " made known 
his ways unto Moses, and his acts unto the 
children of Israel" (Psa. ciii. 7). We have 
seen that the man Moses was competent to 
write, and did write, what God had made 
known to him (Deut. xxxi. 24). The 
Psalms are illuminated and set aflame with 
the faith of Israel, that Moses said and 
wrote what is ascribed to him in the Pen- 
tateuch. 

Ezra, Nehemiah, and the prophets down 
to Malachi reiterated the same belief, sung 
and taught it to their children. Were they 
mistaken ? 

The finding of the Pentateuch during 
Josiah's reign, which had been lost in the 
rubbish of the temple during the wicked 
reign of Manasseh and x\mmon, is evi- 
dently referred to in 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14, 15 : 
"Hilkiah the priest found the book of the 
law of Jehovah by the hand of Moses. 
(Margin, R. V.) And Hilkiah answered 
and said to Shaphan, I have found The 



Concerning Destructive Criticism, 31 

Book of the- law of the house of the Lord/' 
Four times within seven verses it is called 
''The Book/' It was read before the King, 
who humbled himself, and prepared himself 
and the people to observe the Passover as it 
had been prescribed in ''the law of Moses/' 
Josiah commanded them to "kill the Pass- 
over, and sanctify yourselves and prepare 
your brethren, that they may do according 
to the word of the Lord by the hand of 
Moses'' (2 Chron. xxxv. 6). This took 
place long before the exile, which the critics 
insist was the beginning of Israel's liter- 
ature, and after which they say the Pen- 
tateuch was written. 

Ezra testifies to the existence of the 
Mosaic law before his time. His testimony 
establishes the Mosaic authorship of the 
Pentateuch. Ezra vii. 6: ''This Ezra 
* ^ ^ was a ready scribe in the law of 
Moses." 

After the return from captivity Ezra de- 
scribes the building of the altar in these 
definite terms : " Then stood up Joshua, the 
son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, 
and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his 
brethren, and builded the altar of the God 



32 The Testimony of the Bible 

of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, 
as it is written in the law of Moses, the man 
of God'' (Ezra iii. 2). Was Ezra deceivmg 
the people? 

There are several things to be noted here : 

1. There was a written lazv of Moses, 
the man of God, then in existence. It was 
not a written law of Ezra which the priests 
palmed off as the written law of Moses. 

2. There zvas a priestly order, according 
to the written law of Moses the man of 
God, not according to the invention of the 
exiles returning from captivity, under the 
pretense that Moses wrote it. 

3. The altar was built according to the 
written law of Moses the man of God. 
These records by Ezra effectually bar the 
door against the critical conjecture that the 
Pentateuch, in which the written law of 
Moses the man of God is found, was fab- 
ricated after the exile. 

The definite law for the place of building 
the altar, by which the priests proceeded in 
the days of Ezra, is recorded by ''Moses 
the man of God,'' in Deut. xii. 5-7: ''Unto 
the place which the Lord your God shall 
choose out of all your tribes to put his name 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 33 

there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, 
and thither shalt thou come; and thither 
shall ye bring your burnt offerings, and your 
sacrifices, and your tithes and heave offer- 
ings of your hand, and your vows, and 
your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of 
your herds and your flocks; and there ye 
shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye 
shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand 
unto, ye and your households, wherein the 
Lord thy God hath blessed thee/' 

It is Ezra, not the critics, who informs us 
that this was *' written in the law of Moses 
the man of God/' We will be pardoned for 
accepting the testimony of Ezra. He does 
not mean to forsake his faith in the Mosaic 
authorship of the Pentateuch, for he writes 
in chapter vi. 18: ''They set the priests in 
their divisions, and the Levites in their 
courses, for the service of God, which is at 
Jerusalem; as it is zmtten in the book of 
Moses/' 

In the eighth chapter of the book of Ne- 
hemiah, that great servant of God affirms 
his faith in the Mosaic authorship of the 
Pentateuch, which was also the faith of all 
the people of his time. In the first verse 

3 



34 The Testimony of the Bible 

in this chapter he informs us that ''all the 
people gathered themselves together, as one 
man, into the street that is before the water 
gate, and they spake unto Ezra the scribe 
to bring the book of the law of Moses, 
which the Lord had commanded to Israel." 
Ezra was not to make a book and call it the 
book of Moses, as some of the critics teach, 
but to ''bring the book of the law of Moses," 
a book in their possession already made, and 
with which they were already familiar — 
''The Book of the Lazv of Moses/' 

"The Book of the Law of Moses" was the 
Jewish title given to the Pentateuch at that 
time, and is so recognized again and again. 
Nehemiah viii. 14 affirms again: "They 
found written in the lav/, which the Lord 
had commanded by Moses, that the children 
of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast 
of the seventh month." Nehemiah quotes 
this "command of the Lord by Moses" 
from Lev. xxiii. 39-42, vvhich was a fraud 
on the part of Nehemiah, if Moses was not 
the author of the book. Again he says in 
the thirteenth chapter of Nehemiah and first 
verse : " On that day they read in the book 
of Moses, in the Jjudience of the people"; 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 35 

but it was not the book of Moses if he had 
not written it, but the book of another one 
of the ''unknown'' so frequently found ( ?) 
in Scripture by our critics. 

The book of Moses in which this last ref- 
erence from Nehemiah is written is the com- 
mand that the ''Ammonite and the Moabite 
should not come into the congregation of 
God for ever/' and is recorded in Deut. 
xxiii. 3, 4. 

But our critical friends inform us that 
Deuteronomy was not written until after the 
captivity. Hence, the logic of their position 
is, that Nehemiah attributes to Moses what 
he did not write, and proves himself to be 
either ignorant of the truth or practicing a 
fraud upon the people. We prefer the tes- 
timony of Nehemiah to that of the latter- 
day critics. 

It should be repeated that the prophets 
and inspired writers down to Malachi re- 
iterated their confidence in the Mosaic au- 
thorship of the Pentateuch. And he, the 
last messenger of the Old Testament to 
Israel, gave them this message from God: 
"Remember ye the lazv of Moses my serv- 
ant, which I commanded unto him" (Mai, 



36 The Testimony of the Bible 

iv. 4). Indeed, the entire testimony of the 
Old Testament is in harmony with the posi- 
tive statements made in the Pentateuch, that 
Moses was commanded to write, and that he 
actually and positively '' wrote all the words 
of the Lord'' (Exod. xxiv. 4). There is 
not a word, syllable, hint, or shadow of a 
hint assigning these five books of Moses to 
a later date or author. 

The presumption, or guess, of the critics 
carries no weight in the face of the testi- 
mony of the entire Old Testament that God 
commanded Moses to write, and that he did 
write, the five books attributed to him. 



IV. 

WERE CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES 
MISTAKEN? 



Christ said to his apostles: 

''Ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in 
Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, 
and unto the uttermost parts of the earth/' 
Acts i. 8. 

''I speak the truth in Christ and lie not/' 
Paul in I Tim. ii. /. 

''Jesus Christ, who is the faithful zvitness 
and the first begotten of the dead, and the 
Prince of the kings of the earth/' The 
Apostle John in Rev. i. 5. 

"We know that thou art a teacher come 
from God, for no man can do these miracles 
that thou doest, except God be zinth him/' 
Nicodemus in John Hi. 2. 

"If I say the truth, why do ye not believe 
met'' Christ in John viii. 46. 

"I am the way, the truth and the life/' 
Christ in John xiv. 6. 



WERE THE APOSTLES MISTAKEN? 

The opinions and testimony of the apos- 
tles are certainly worth something. They 
had three years of instruction under our 
Lord, and the promise from him that the 
Holy Spirit should guide them into all truth. 
(John xvi. 13.) 

A study of the writers of the New Tes- 
tament proves that they are in absolute har- 
mony with the writers of the Old Testament 
as to the Mosaic authorship of the five 
books of the Pentateuch. Luke ii. 22 in- 
forms us that the mother of Jesus, ''when 
the days of her purification were accom- 
plished according to the law of Moses/' 
brought the child ''to present him to the 
Lord.'' This was done, according to Levit- 
icus xii. 2-6, and accredits that book to 
Moses, and not to some imaginary author. 

The Apostle John informs us that "the 
law was given by Moses, but grace and truth 
came by Jesus Christ'' (John i. 17). If he 
has misled us in reference to Moses and the 
law, can we trust him in reference to grace 
and truth by Jesus Christ? 



40 The Testimony of the Bible 

When Peter made his address to the 
people who were surprised at the healing 
of the cripple, he said: ''Moses truly said 
unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord 
your God raise up unto you of your breth- 
ren/' (See Acts iii. 22.) 

This saying of Moses is recorded in Deut. 
xviii. 15, the contents of which book are 
introduced to us in these words : '' These be 
the words which Moses spake unto all Israel 
on this side Jordan in the wilderness, in the 
plain over against the Red Sea'' (Deut. 
i. i), referring to the whole books spoken 
by Moses, the learned man, mighty in words 
and deeds, but not recorded, the critics say, 
until after the exile, about a thousand years ! 
This you are asked to believe on the basis 
of the professed or assumed acumen of the 
critics ! 

Further, in his great speech before the 
Sanhedrim at his martyrdom, Stephen 
quotes Moses as having received full and 
complete directions from God concerning 
the tabernacle. (Acts vii. 44.) In the 
twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus, the book in 
which Moses was commanded to write and 
did write, these directions are recorded. 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 41 

We accept Stephen's testimony, added to 
that of Exod. XXV., rather than the testi- 
mony of the critics. 

When Paul was writing to the Corinth- 
ians of the bHndness of the Jews (2 Cor. 
iii. 15) he said: ''Even unto this day, when 
Moses is read, the veil is upon their hearts." 

Moses must have written something if 
he was read. What has become of his 
writings? Is it not the Pentateuch which 
the Scriptures everywhere call the writings 
of Moses? Undoubtedly, yes.- 

In Paul's missionary sermon at Antioch 
in Pisidia, he declared to his audience that 
through Christ ''all that believe are jus- 
tified from all things, from which ye could 
not be justified hy the lazij of Moses" (Acts 
xiii. 39). 

Why does Paul refer to the ceremonial 
of the Jewish ritual as the law of Moses? 
It must be answered that Paul was a Jew. 
He was familiar with the Jewish Scriptures. 
He had read the following passages and be- 
lieved them, and was grounded in the truth 
which they declare, that "by the hand of 
Moses'' they were given to the people. 

To satisfy the reader that they were 



42 The Testimony of the Bible 

"given by the hand of Moses'' the following 
Scriptures are furnished: 

1. "Aaron and his sons did all things 
which were commanded by the hand of 
Moses/' (Lev. viii. 36.) 

2. "That ye may teach the children of 
Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath 
spoken unto them by the hand of Moses/' 
(Lev. X. II.) 

3. "These are the statutes and judgments 
and laws which the Lord made between him 
and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai, 
by the hand of Moses/' (Lev. xxvi. 46.) 

4. "These were they that were numbered 
of the families of the Kohathites, all that 
might do service in the tabernacle of the 
congregation, which Moses and Aaron did 
number, according to the commandment of 
the Lord by the hand of Moses/' (Num. 

iv. 37-) 

5. "These * * * whom Moses and 
Aaron numbered, according to the word of 
the Lord by the hand of Moses/' (Num. 

iv. 450 

6. "According to the commandment of 
the Lord they were numbered by the hand 
of Moses/' (Num. iv. 49.) 



Concerning Destmctive Criticism. 43 

7. ''They kept the charge of the Lord, at 
the commandixient of the Lord, by the hand 
of Moses/' (Num. ix. 23.) 

8. "And they first took their journey ac- 
cording to the commandment of the Lord 
by the hand of Moses/' (Num. x. 13.) 

9. ''Even all that the Lord hath com- 
manded you by the hand of Moses, from 
the day that the Lord commanded Moses." 
(Num. XV. 23.) 

10. "That no stranger, which is not of 
the seed of Aaron, come near to offer in- 
cense before the Lord, that he be not as 
Kora and his company, as the Lord said 
to him by the hand of Moses/' (Num. 
xvi. 40.) 

11. "And he laid his hands upon him, 
and gave him a charge, as the Lord com- 
manded by the hand of Moses/' (Num. 
xxvii. 23.) 

12. "These are the commandments and 
the judgments which the Lord commanded 
by the hand of Moses/' (Num. xxxvi. 13.) 

13. "By lot was their inheritance, as the 
Lord commanded by the hand of Moses/' 
(Joshua xiv. 2.) 

14. "Speak unto the children of Israel, 



44 The Testimony of the Bible 

saying, Appoint out for you cities of refuge, 
whereof I spake unto you by the hand of 
Moses!' (Joshua xx. 2.) 

15. ''The Lord commanded by the hand 
of Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with 
the suburbs thereof for our cattle/' (Joshua 
xxi. 2.) 

16. ''And the children of Israel gave by 
lot unto the Levites these cities with their 
suburbs, as the Lord commanded by the 
hand of Moses.'' (Joshua xxi. 8.) 

17. "And the children of Reuben, and 
the children of Gad, and the half tribe of 
Manasseh returned, ^ ^ ^ according to 
the w^ord of the Lord by the hand of 
Moses." (Joshua xxii. 9.) 

18. "And they were to prove Israel by 
them, to know whether they would hearken 
unto the commandments of the Lord, which 
he commanded their fathers by the hand of 
Moses." (Judges iii. 4.) 

19. "Thou didst separate them from 
among all the people of the earth, to be 
thine inheritance, as thou spakest by the 
hand of Moses, thy servant.'' (i Kings 

viii. 53-) 

20. "There hath not failed one word of 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 45 

all his good promise, which he promised by 
the hand of Moses his servant.'' (i Kings 
viii. 56.) 

21. "So that they will take heed to do all 
that I have commanded them, according to 
the whole law and the statutes and the ordi- 
nances by the hand of Moses.'" (2 Chron. 
xxxiii. 8.) 

22. ''To kill the passover, and sanctify 
yourselves, and prepare your brethren, that 
they may do according to the word of the 
Lord, by the hand of Moses." (2 Chron. 
XXXV. 6.) 

23. ''Thou * * * madest known unto 
them thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst 
unto them precepts, statutes and laws, by 
the hand of Moses thy servant.'' (Neh. 
ix. 14.) 

24. "Thou leddest thy people like a flock 
by the hand of Moses and Aaron." (Psa. 
Ixxvii. 20.) 

Paul was familiar with these statements 
of the Jewish Scriptures. He believed them. 
(2 Cor. iv. 13.) He believed that God gave 
"the whole law and the statutes and the or- 
dinances by the hand of Moses" (2 Chron. 
xxxiii. 8), who was learned in all the wis- 



46 The Testimony of the Bible 

dom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in 
words and deeds. (Acts vii. 22.) Hence he 
called the Scriptures ''The Law of Moses/' 

Some of the critics will concede that 
many things were done by Moses, but not 
recorded until after the exile ! Think of it ! 
The laws, statutes, and ordinances which 
were vital to the life of the Jewish nation, 
which had been given at Sinai, and were 
announced with the sanctions of life or 
death, were not recorded by God's appointed 
leader, whom he had trained in all the learn- 
ing of the times, but were left for almost a 
thousand years to uncertain tradition ! 

Paul had not forgotten the above state- 
ments concerning Moses* personal connec- 
tion with the giving of the law. Before 
Felix he was arraigned, and testified ''what 
the prophets and Moses did say." (Acts 
xxvi. 22.) 

To the Jews at Rome "he expounded and 
testified the kingdom of God, persuading 
them concerning Jesus, both out of the laws 
of Moses and out of the prophets." (Acts 
xxviii. 23.) 

. In his Epistle to the Roman Christians he 
says (quoting from Lev. xviii. 5); "For 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 47 

Moses writeth that the man that doeth the 
righteousness which is of the law shall live 
thereby." (Rom. x. 5, R. V.) 

To the Corinthian Christians he says : '* It 
is written in the lazu of Moses, Thou shalt 
not muzzle the mouth of the ox when he 
treadeth out the corn." (i Cor. ix. 9.) 
Here again he quotes from Deut. xxv. 4, 
and repeats the quotation in i Tim. v. 18. 
•But the critics deny that it was written until 
after the exile, at least nine hundred or one 
thousand years later. 

The Apostle Jam.es adds his testimony to 
that of Paul, while addressing the assembly 
of the apostles at Jerusalem, saying: "For 
Moses of old time hath in every city them 
that preach him, being read in the syna- 
gogues every Sabbath." (x\cts xv. 21.) 

We have learned in these quotations from 
Matthew, Luke, John, Stephen, Peter, and 
Paul, their repeated testimony, their unvary- 
ing faith that Moses both spoke and -wrote 
the scriptures contained in the Pentateuch. 
We have seen that their faith was founded 
on twenty- four inspired declarations that 
these five books were given ''by the hand 
of Moses:' These statements are found in 



48 The Testimony of the Bible 

the books themselves, from Leviticus to the 
Psalms. If inspired testimony is worth any- 
thing, the case is closed, and the critics' case 
goes out of court, m.ore than disproved. 



WAS CHRIST MISTAKEN f 

The reader will be interested to know 
what Christ has to say of the critics' denial 
of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. 
For he who ''spake as never man spake/' 
he of whom the Father said, ''This is my 
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, 
hear ye him/' this same Jesus had some 
very positive opinions on the subject before 
us. He has spoken clearly and definitely. 
We may not turn away from his testimony. 

I. After healing the leper, our Lord said 
to him : " Go thy way, show thyself to the 
priest, and offer the gift that Moses com- 
manded for a testimony unto them." (See 
Matt. viii. 4, Mark i. 44, Luke v. 14.) 

Our Savior here quotes from Lev. xiv. 
2-8. Moses had been commanded to write 
the words that God had given him. (Exod. 
xxxiv. 2y.) "And Moses wrote all the 
words of the Lord" (Exod. xxiv. 4), hence 



Concerning Destmctive Criticism, 49 

our Lord quotes the passage in Leviticus 
from Moses. 

2. The Pharisees, always captious and 
controversial, sought to entangle the Savior 
in a discussion on the subject of divorce. 
Replying, ''He saith unto them, Moses, be- 
cause of the hardness of your hearts, suf- 
fered you to put away your wives." (Matt. 
xix. 8.) Our Lord here quotes from the 
Mosaic law (Deut. xxiv. 1-4), recognizing 
Moses as the author of the same. 

3. He rebuked the scribes and Pharisees 
also for turning from the w^ord of God to 
the traditions of men. "For Moses said, 
Honor thy father and thy mother." (Mark 
vii. 10.) This quotation is from Exod. 
XX. 12, and Deut. v. 16. They had made 
the command of Moses of no effect, had 
violated the law which Christ taught had 
been given by Moses. 

4. The Sadducees came to him with their 
controversy concerning the resurrection. 
They presented to him an unanswerable ar- 
gument, as they supposed, against the doc- 
trine, questioning as to whose wife she 
should be in the resurrection, who has had 
seven husbands in this life. Christ replied 

4 



50 The Testimony of the Bible 

(Mark xii. 26, 2y) : "As touching the dead, 
that they rise ; have ye not read in the book 
of Moses how in the bush God spake unto 
him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and 
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? 
He is not the God of the dead, but the God 
of the Hving." 

This quotation by our Lord is from Exod. 
iii. 6, and he calls the book from which it is 
made ''the book of Moses/' Did Christ 
know whether it was tlie book of Moses or 
of some unknown author who had so art- 
fully palmed it off under false colors as to 
deceive the entire Jewish nation? 

Or, as certain of the critics teach, did 
Christ know that the pretense that it was the 
book of Moses was a fraud, but, in view 
of public opinion, was unwilling to expose 
the deception ? To ask these questions is to 
uncover the animus of the critical assump- 
tions which logically attack the character of 
Christ himself. 

Christ knew who was the author of the 
book, and knowing, he affirmed that it was 
''The Book of Moses/' 

5. In our Lord's parable of the rich man 
and Lazarus, Dives is represented as plead- 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 51 

ing that some one be sent from the dead to 
warn his brothers, lest they also come mto 
this place of torment. The reply to his 
request was: ''They have Moses and the 
prophets. * * '^ If they hear not Moses 
and the prophets, neither will they be per- 
suaded, though one rose from the dead.'' 
(Luke xvi. 29, 30.) '' Moses and the proph- 
ets" was the name for the Jewish Bible. 
If Moses did not write the Pentateuch, the 
name of their Bible was false, and the 
Savior indorsed a falsehood. We believe 
"the faithful and true Witness," and reject 
the critics who dishonor his character. 

6. After Christ's resurrection he walked 
and communed with the two disciples on the 
way to Emmaus. He instructed them con- 
cerning the Messiah's death, and, ''begin- 
ning at Moses" (Luke xxiv. 27), informed 
them that it was God's plan, foretold in the 
Old Testament. He appeared to his apos- 
tles and declared to them that "all things 
must be fulfilled which are written in the 
law of Moses and the prophets." (Luke 
xxiv. 44.) The critics deny Moses' author- 
ship, but Christ affirms it, using the language 
that means the Pentateuch. We believe him. 



52 The Testimony of the Bible 

7. In our Lord's conversation with Nic- 
odemus he recognizes Moses in connection 
with the book of Numbers. He refers to 
the historical incident, if our critical friends 
will leave us any Biblical history, in Num- 
bers xxi. 8, 9. He says : ''As Moses lifted 
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so 
must the Son of man be lifted up/' (John 
iii. 14.) 

Recurring to the passage in Numbers, we 
learn that, in the dire distress of the people 
for their sins, God commanded Moses to 
make a brazen serpent, and lift it up before 
the people, that they might look and live. 

Certain of the critical school consent that 
Moses was connected with the event, but did 
not record it. Indeed ! And what proof 
that he failed to make the record? It was 
personal to himself. It was symbolically 
prophetic of the crucifixion of Christ, as 
our Savior used it, an event toward which 
all prophecy moved. And we have already 
learned that nine times it has been stated in 
the book of Numbers that the acts, precepts, 
and statutes of this book were done and 
given by "the hand of Moses." 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 53 

8. To the Jews, seeking to murder their 
Messiah, he said : '' Do not think that I will 
accuse you to the Father ; there is one that 
accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. 
For had ye believed Moses ye would have 
believed me, for he wrote of me/' (See 
John V. 45. 46.) 

When and where did he write of Christ? 
He wrote of him in the five books which 
are ascribed to Moses by all the Old Tes- 
tament Scriptures, and by Christ and his 
apostles. He wrote of him in Gen. iii. 15, 
when God promised that ''the seed of the 
woman shall bruise the serpent's head.'' He 
wrote of Christ in Gen. xii. 3, when God 
promised Abraham : " In thee shall all fam- 
ilies of the earth be blessed." He wrote 
of the Messiah when he recorded Jacob's 
prophecy in Gen. xlix. 10: ''The scepter 
shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver 
from between his feet until Shiloh come." 
Moses wrote of Christ, when under divine 
direction he instituted the passover, as re- 
corded in the twelfth chapter of Exodus. 

He wrote of Christ in the Levitical ritual, 
when under God's instruction he set up the 



54 The Testimony of th^ Bible 

system of types for the tabernacle and the 
temple service, which taught the funda- 
mentals of the New Testament gospel — 
redemption by the blood. 

The whole tabernacle and its furniture 
was necessary to complete the symbolism 
that should represent the Messiah. The 
altar, the laver, the shew bread, the golden 
candlestick, the mercy seat, and the of- 
ficiating high priest. For ''Moses was ad- 
monished of God when he was about to 
make the tabernacle," and received positive 
direction as to how he should construct it, 
that redemption should echo from every 
part of the service. Beautiful and glorious 
was the service that proclaimed ''Christ and 
him crucified." Christ's testimony here is 
twofold : That " Moses wrote," and that he 
"wrote of me," of Christ, the witness of 
these things. 

9. It was at the feast of tabernacles, in 
the year 29 A. D., that the Jews attacked 
the Savior in a fierce controversy, because 
he healed on the Sabbath day. He was 
teaching in the temple when they charged 
him with violating the Sabbath. 

To that charge he replied: ''Did not 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 55 

Moses give you the laivf Yet none of you 
keepeth the law." (See John vii. 19.) He 
affirms in most positive terms, that can not 
be twisted into the shadow of a negation, 
that Moses gave them the law. The inter- 
rogative form of his statement is rhetoric- 
ally the strongest possible affirmation. 

10. Once more, in the tw^enty-third verse 
of the same chapter, Christ refers to the 
fact that their children received circum- 
cision on the Sabbath day, that "the law of 
Moses be not broken." 

The sum of Christ's testimony to the 
Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is be- 
fore us. Ten times our Lord asserts in the 
passages quoted that the law given in the 
Pentateuch was the "law of Moses." He 
affirms that in that law ''he wTOte of me." 
From Genesis to Revelation there is con- 
tinued affirmation by prophets, apostles, and 
by Christ, who can not lie, that the five 
books of the Pentateuch are the books of 
Moses, under the guiding hand of the Spirit 
of God. 

A recent writer, who has gone over the 
testimony of the Bible itself against the 
critics, says: ''We find in them (the writers 



56 The Testimony of the Bible 

of the Old Testament) more than eight hun- 
dred quotations from, or references to, the 
first five books of the Bible, and not a hint 
is given that Moses is not their author," but 
he is everywhere recognized as the author, 
under God. 

Witnesses multiply with every restudy of 
the book, proving the Mosaic authorship of 
the first five books of The Book. ''What 
shall we say, then, to these things? If God 
be for us, who can be against us ?" 



V. 

THE ATTACK ON THE BOOK OF 
LEVITICUS. 



''The Lord called unto Moses, and spake 
unto him out of the tabernacle of the con- 
gregation, saying, Speak unto the children 
of Israel and say unto them, If any man of 
you bring an offering, ye shall bring your 
offering of the cattle, even of the herd and 
of the flock/' Lev. i. i, 2. 

''And zvhen any will offer a meat offering 
unto the Lord, his offering shall be of fine 
flour, and he shall pour oil upon it, and put 
frankincense thereon/' Lev. ii. i. 

"And if his oblation be a sacrifice of 
peace offering, * "^ * //^ shall lay his 
hand upon the head of his offering, and kill 
it at the door of the tabernacle of the con- 
gregation, and Aaron's sons the priests shall 
sprinkle the blood upon the altar round 
about." Lev. Hi. i, 2. 

"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying. 
Speak unto the children of Israel, saying. 
If a soul shall sin through ignorance against 
any of the commandments of the Lord con- 
cerning things which ought not to be done, 
^ "^ ^ let him bring for his sin, zvhich he 
hath sinned, a young bullock without blem- 
ish unto the Lord for a sin offering/' Lev. 
iv. I, 2, 3. 

''His truth endureth to all generations/' 
Psa. c. 5. 



THE ATTACK ON THE BOOK OF 
LEVITICUS. 

Having considered the critical assault on 
the Pentateuch as a whole, attention should 
be called to the special criticisms on the 
book of Leviticus. A prominent represent- 
ative of the school of critics affirmed in his 
recent lectures at Long Beach, California, 
that the Hebrews had no literature until 
their connection with the Babylonians while 
in captivity, that their literature was devel- 
oped during their agricultural life while in 
Babylon. He affirmed that the sacrificial 
ritual of the book of Leviticus had its roots 
in the heathen sacrifices, growing out of 
their false conception that their deities must 
be appeased by the shedding of blood. The 
Levitical ritual was, therefore, never writ- 
ten nor given by Moses. If this gentleman 
and the critics that hold with him are cor- 
rect, we must conclude with them that 
Moses never saw or heard of our book of 
Leviticus. 

In reply let it be said : 

I. The denial of the existence of Hebrew 
literature prior to the exile is thoroughly 



6o The Testimony of the Bible 

answered and set aside by the records dis- 
covered on the Egyptian monuments and 
writings before and during Israel's bond- 
age. Many of the critics have found this 
criticism untenable, and have abandoned it. 
They have been obHged to concede that 
Egyptian and Babylonian literature existed 
long before the time of Moses. The best 
scholarship of to-day affirms that "the dis- 
covery and first use of writing is certainly 
as old as the time of Abraham." (See 
Schaff-Hergoz, Enc. Art. Writing.) 

2. If the Bible itself is not a fraud, 
writing was constantly in use in the time of 
Moses. See 

(i) Exod. xvii. 14: "The Lord said 
unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in 
a book." 

(2) Exod. xxiv. 4: "And Moses wrote 
all the words of the Lord." 

(3) Exod. xxxiv. 2j: "And the Lord 
said unto Moses, Write thou these words." 

(4) Exod. xxxiv. 28: "And he (God) 
wrote upon the tables the words of the 
covenant." 

(5) Num. V. 23: "And the priest shall 
write these curses in a book." 



Concerning Destructive Criticism, 6i 

(6) Num. xi. 26: "They were of them 
that were written/' 

(7) Num. xvii. 2: ''Write thou every 
man's name upon his rod." 

(8) Num. xvii. 3 : ''Write Aaron's name 
upon the rod of Levi." 

(9) Num. xxxiii. 2 : "And Moses wrote 
their goings out according to their journey- 
ings by the commandment of the Lord." 

(10) Deut. vi. 9: "Thou shalt write 
them upon the posts of thy house and upon 
thy gates." 

(11) Deut. xi. 20. Repeats the last ref- 
erence cited. 

(12) Deut. xvii. 18: "When he (the 
king) sitteth upon the throne of his king- 
dom, he shall write him a copy of this law 
in a book." 

These are a few out of the many passages 
in the Pentateuch in which God has com- 
manded his servant to write, and in which 
it is positively stated that his servant did 
write. One of two things is certain, either 
the whole Pentateuch is a fraud, having 
stated repeatedly that writing was com- 
manded and practiced, or the book is true, 



62 The Testimony of the Bible 

and the fraud must be charged to the belated 
critics. 

The reader will see very clearly that the 
purpose of such criticism is to eliminate the 
supernatural from the Bible, as has been 
said, and destroy its certitude. 

It is too late in the day for the Profes- 
sor's criticism, that Hebrew literature had 
its first development during the exile. 
** Stephen full of the Holy Spirit, looking 
steadfastly into heaven,'' read the record 
of history concerning Moses differently. 
Stephen could not have heard the Chau- 
tauqua lecturer's statement, for he affirmed 
that "Moses was learned in all the wisdom 
of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words 
and deeds." 

3. Consider now the assumptions of the 
critics in the face of the claims of the book 
of Leviticus. In the first verses of the book 
it is written: *'And the Lord called upon 
Moses, and spake unto him out of the tab- 
ernacle of the congregation, saying " Then 
follow God's specific directions concerning 

(i) The burnt offering; 

(2) The meat offering, and 

(3) The sin offering, occupying the 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 63 

whole of the first three chapters. The 
fourth chapter is introduced in the same 
explicit language. 

(4) The sin offering. 

This definite direction of God to Moses 
extends to the sixth chapter of the book. 
Here again the same formula of speech is 
employed, God speaking to Moses and gave 
directions concerning 

(5) The trespass offering. 

In the eighth chapter we have God's 
direct communication to Moses, and Moses' 
response in such phrases as the following, 
and all in a single chapter : ''And the Lord 
spake to Moses, * ^ ^ and Moses did as 
the Lord commanded him, ^ ^ ^ and 
Moses said unto the congregation, ^ ^ ^ 
and Moses brought Aaron and his sons, 

* ''' "^ as the Lord commanded Moses, 

* * * and Moses brought Aaron's sons, 
as the Lord commanded Moses." Ten times 
in this single chapter it is recorded that God 
spake to Moses, and Moses obeyed God. 

And yet our critic would have us believe 
one of two things : God either took the 
heathen sacrificial ritual, veneered it with 
some sort of divine approval, and handed it 



64 The Testimony of the Bible 

over to his people for their use, or by some 
sort of evolution the book of Leviticus came 
up out of the heathen method of appeasing 
their malevolent deities! 

Let the facts be summarized. In every 
one of the twenty-seven chapters of the 
book of Leviticus God is represented as 
commanding Moses, and Moses is repre- 
sented as doing the thing which God re- 
quired of him, and several times in many 
of the chapters. In the eighteenth chapter 
nineteen definite things are done by Moses, 
the seventeenth verse asserting that all this 
was done ''as the Lord commanded Moses." 
The following references are absolutely 
unanswerable by the critics, viz. : 

Lev. i. i: "The Lord called unto Moses, 
and spake unto him." 

Lev. iv. I : "The Lord spake unto Moses, 
saying," etc. 

Lev. vi. I : "And the Lord spake unto 
Moses." 

Lev. viii. i : "And the Lord spake unto 
Moses." 

Lev. viii. 36 : "Aaron and his sons did all 
things which the Lord commanded by the 
hand of Moses." 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 65 

Lev. ix. 6 : "And Moses said, This is the 
thing which the Lord commanded that ye 
should do." 

Lev. xi. I : ''And the Lord spake unto 
Moses and to Aaron." 

Lev. xii. i : ''And the Lord spake unto 
Moses." 

Lev. xiii. i : "And the Lord spake unto 
Moses and Aaron." 

Lev. xiv. I : "And the Lord spake unto 
Moses." 

Lev. xiv. 33 : "And the Lord spake unto 
Moses and unto Aaron." 

Without further repetition of this phrase- 
ology, the reader will find the same in the 
following references, viz.: xv. i, xvi. i, 
xvii. I, xviii. I, xix. i, xx. i, xxi. i, xxii. 
1-17, xxiii. I, xxiv. i, xxv. i, xxvii. 1-34. 

Here are twenty-five positive statements 
that God spake to Moses, or commanded 
Moses. Does language mean anything? Is 
there any escape from the truth, except by 
a denial of the entire Word of God? 

God and Moses are the active agents in 

every chapter in the book of Leviticus. 

And this fact is definitely stated in the last 

verse of Leviticus: "These are the com- 

6 



66 The Testimony of the Bible 

mandments which the Lord commanded 
Moses." 

You might as well attempt to blot the sun 
from the heavens at high noon as to elimi- 
nate from the book of Leviticus the one 
great and divinely-appointed personality, 
Moses, the lawgiver, the leader, the actor, 
and under God the author of the book. 

A further word concerning the date of 
Leviticus. When was it written? As 
already stated, the critics place the time of 
the writing after the exile, between nine 
hundred and one thousand years after the 
decease of Moses. Something additional 
should be added to what has already been 
said on that subject. 

The reader of the English Bible will see 
that Leviticus immediately follows Exodus 
by the connectives^ and." The same He- 
brew connective unites Exodus with Gen- 
esis, and Numbers with Leviticus. The 
natural, grammatical, and logical inference 
is, that the autlior of Genesis is the author 
of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. 

In addition to this fact we have the tes- 
timony of some of the prophets who lived 
before the exile, that they were familiar 



Concerning Destructive Criticism, 67 

with what the critics call ''the priestly 
code/' which is elaborated in Leviticus. 

Professor Stanley Leathes adduces forty- 
five allusions to the books of Moses in the 
book of Amos. (See Bible Student and 
Teacher, October, 1906.) Amos' prophetic 
work was "in the northern kingdom, be- 
tween 807 and 765 B. C, during the reign 
of Jeroboam II., when Israel was at the 
height of its splendor." (See Schaff-Her- 
zog, Enc. Art. Amos.) This was more than 
two hundred years before the restoration 
from the exile, long before the captivity, 
which the critics designate as the beginning 
of the literary period. 

Professor Leathes affirms that ''there is 
apparent acquaintance with and reference to 
each book of the Pentateuch in this proph- 
ecy." He shows that Leviticus is referred 
to in nine passages in Amos. The reference 
in Amos iv. 5 to "a sacrifice in thanksgiv- 
ing with leaven" is an allusion to the law 
of thanksgiving in Lev. vii. 13. 

In giving God's message to Israel in a 
time of great backsliding, Amos said to 
them: "Though ye offer unto me burnt 
offerings and meat offerings, I will not ac- 



68 The Testimony of the Bible 

cept them, neither will I regard the peace 
offerings of your fat beasts." (Amos v. 

23.) 

This is an allusion to the law of burnt 
offerings and meat offerings set forth in the 
first chapter of Leviticus. But the critics 
inform us that there was no law concerning 
these offerings until several hundred years 
after Amos ceased to prophesy! 

Again, enumerating the sins of the people, 
Amos charges them with giving the Naza- 
rites wine to drink. ''Ye gave the Naza- 
rites wine to drink, and commanded the 
prophets, saying, Prophesy not." (Amos ii. 
12.) This was a violation of the law of God 
as found in Num. vi. 2, 3, showing at least 
that the Pentateuch, of which Leviticus is 
an important part, was known to Amos, 
long before the period to which Leviticus 
has been assigned by the destructive critics. 

Hosea adds his testimony to that of 
Amos and Ezekiel. Again and again he 
refers to the law of sacrifices as taught in 
Leviticus. ''They shall be ashamed because 
of their sacrifices." "They sacrifice on the 
tops of the mountains and burn incense 
upon the hills." (Hosea iv. 13, 19.) 



Concerning Destructive Criticism, 69 

Concerning Ephraim, God says by the 
prophet Hosea : " I wrote for him ten thou- 
sand things of my law/' (Hosea viii. 12, 
R. V.) He refers to the law as given to 
Moses in all its length and breadth. 

The critics demand large credulity from 
us. They ask us to accept their position 
that the Bible itself was mistaken as to its 
authorship, that Christ and his apostles were 
mistaken; or at least did not tell the truth 
when they assigned the Pentateuch (Leviti- 
cus included) to Moses. They then ask us 
to believe that the Bible is not only unim- 
paired by the mistakes which the experts 
claim to have discovered, but is really much 
improved by the discovery! 

It passes rational comprehension that we 
are permitted to expunge from the Word of 
God, on the ground of literary criticism, 
the positive and repeated statements of in- 
spired men, and of the Son of God, and yet 
assume that we have an unimpaired revela- 
tion! 

We rather turn to the glorious array of 
witnesses to the integrity of the Bible that 
God has furnished — the book itself, Moses 
and the prophets, all the New Testament 



7o The Testimony of the Bible 

writers and the ''Teacher sent from God." 
From these witnesses we rest in the un- 
shaken beHef that ''God spake all these 
words" (Ex. XX. i) and that "Moses wrote 
all the words of the Lord" (Ex. xxiv. 4), 
including Leviticus. 



yi. 

ASSUMPTIONS CONCERNING THE 
BOOK OF ISAIAH. 



^'Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all 
flesh; is there anything too hard for mef 
Jer. xxxii. 2J, 

''God hath spoken once; twice have I 
heard this; that power belongeth unto God!' 
Psa, Ixii. II. 

''Great is our Lord, and of great power; 
his understanding is infinite f' Ps. cxlvii, 5. 

"He revealeth the deep and secret things; 
he knoweth what is in the darkness, and 
that the light dwelleth with him." Dan. 

a. 22. 

"Known unto God are all his works from 
the beginning of the world.'' Acts xv. 18. 

"The Lord looketh from heaven; he be- 
holdeth all the sons of men." Psa. xxxiii. 
13- 

"Now therefore go, and I will be with thy 
mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say." 
Ex. iv. 12. 

"And he said. Go, and tell this people, 
Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and 
see ye indeed, but perceive not." Isaiah 
vi. p. 



ASSUMPTIONS CONCERNING THE 
BOOK OF ISAIAH. 

The critics claim to have discovered, on 
literary and other evidence, that the Church 
of Christ, in all its branches, has been mis- 
taken in all the past concerning the author 
of the book known as the Prophecies of 
Isaiah. They assume that all the foremost 
scholars of the world, and the faith of 
God's people, have been misled. Our crit- 
ical advisers profess to have discovered that 
there were at least two, and probably many 
more prophets, whose writings compose the 
book. They refuse to recognize Isaiah 
alone as the author; and for several rea- 
sons: 

First — Because of the change of style of 
composition from the thirty-ninth chapter 
to the close of the book. 

Second — On the ground that the theme is 
more exalted than in the first thirty-nine 
chapters. Hence, it is assumed that these 
last chapters could not have been written 
by Isaiah. 

Third — On the ground that Cyrus is men- 



^4 The Testimony of the Bible 

tioned by name, in the forty- fourth and 
forty-fifth chapters of the book, as the re- 
storer of Jerusalem. Hence, our critics 
conclude that this part of the book must 
have been written after the event, as the 
prophet (it is assumed) could not name 
Cyrus before his birth. 

Fourth — The critics assume that the 
prophet must prophesy out of his imme- 
diate surroundings, whatever that may 
mean. They furnish their troubled dis- 
ciples the comforting assurance that these 
discoveries do not diminish the value of the 
book, but render it more accurate and inter- 
esting as a literary work. The professor 
already quoted, a fair representative of the 
critical school, in his recent lectures, re- 
ferred to on a preceding page, distinguished 
the authors of the book as ''Isaiah and the 
Great Unknown Prophet." Other critics 
multiply, somewhat indefinitely, the number 
of ''The Unknowns." Our critic regards 
the change in style and theme from the 
thirty-ninth chapter to the end of the book 
as valid proof of at least the dual author- 
ship of the book. 

This assumption instantly raises the ques- 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 75 

tion as to who is the author of prophetic 
themes. Is it the prophet himself or the 
Holy Spirit? Does the prophet himself 
bring forth the prophecy of his own fore- 
knowledge? Or, is the Holy Spirit the in- 
spirer of themes new and old? Happily 
God has settled the question for us. He 
declares by his Apostle Peter ''that no 
prophecy of Scripture is of any private 
interpretation"; that is, of the prophet's 
own disclosure. ''For prophecy came not 
of old time by the will of man; but holy 
men of God spake as they were moved by 
the Holy Spirit.'' (2 Peter i. 20, 21.) It 
is, therefore, bold assumption to affirm that 
God could not give to the same prophet 
new and more exalted themes in his pro- 
gressive revelation of truth. It is a limita- 
tion of God himself to the critic's notion of 
what should, or should not be. This would 
eliminate the divine element of the book by 
a sweep of the critic's pen. It is an assump- 
tion too groundless to need a reply. 

Further, as to the change of style. Noth- 
ing is more natural or reasonable than the 
fact that a change of theme should produce 
a change of style. A more exalted theme 



y6 The Testimony of the Bible 

must quicken the imagination, set the emo- 
tions aflame, stimulate all the mental and 
moral powers of the author. A historical 
statement, a commonplace theme, can be 
dealt with in a commonplace style, while 
new and uplifting truth awakens new pow- 
ers in the writer. Milton's Paradise Lost 
was entirely different from his ordinary 
prose composition. Dr. John Watson's ser- 
mons were on a higher level than his books 
of fiction. Writers who do much of their 
literary work on the level plain on which 
the people move, frequently rise to moun- 
tain peaks of sublime composition when the 
occasion and theme demand it. 

The style in the later chapters of the 
book of Isaiah is just what we would ex- 
pect from the prophet when the Holy Spirit 
opened to his enraptured mind the theme of 
redemption through a suffering Messiah, in 
the fifty-third and following chapters of the 
book. 

The objection to conceding the author- 
ship of the entire book to Isaiah, because 
the prophet mentions Cyrus by name be- 
fore his birth, is made in the face of the 
fundamental fact already stated, that God 



Concerning Destructive Criticism, yy 

inspired the writer, and is therefore the au- 
thor of prophecy, ''declaring the end from 
the beginning." (Isa. xlvi. lo.) He knows 
all the future and whom he will choose to 
accomplish his glorious purposes. To deny 
this fact is to deny all prophecy. If God 
can not foretell future events and the in- 
struments for their accomplishment, there 
can be no prophecy, and God's omniscience 
is impeached. Isaiah prophesied in the sev- 
enth chapter and fourteenth verse : " Be- 
hold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, 
and shall call his name Immanuel." 
Matthew affirms that this prophecy was ful- 
filled in the birth of Jesus. (Matt. i. 22, 
23.) He also declares in the same connec- 
tion that the announcing angel foretold that 
the name "Jesus" was to be given to the 
Messiah at his birth. These preannounce- 
ments must be cast aside if the critic's dic- 
tum is accepted. Shall we discredit Isaiah, 
the announcing angel, and Matthew on the 
ground of the critic's literary acumen? 

Further, the student of the Word will re- 
member that when Jeroboam was bringing 
disaster upon Israel, God sent his prophet 
to declare: "Behold a son shall be born 



78 The Testimony of the Bible 

unto the house of David, Josiah by name; 
and upon thee (the altar at Bethel) shall he 
offer the priests of the high places that burn 
incense upon thee, and men's bones shall 
be burnt upon thee." More than three hun- 
dred years after this prophecy was given, 
according to Usher's Chronology, Josiah 
was born and did the precise things that 
were predicted concerning him. (See i 
Kings xiii. 2 and 2 Kings xxiii. 15, 16.) 
The omniscience of the Holy Spirit can pre- 
dict the name of the instrument as readily 
as the event which is to be accomplished. 

Again, undoubtedly the prophet must 
speak out of his own environment. He can 
only speak where he is. But who is to de- 
cide how many and what allusions he must 
make to custom or incident in order to 
satisfy the critic, as to his time and place in 
history ? 

The tailor who decides that he must have 
twenty yards of cloth to make a suit of 
clothes, when ten yards are sufficient, will 
shortly be wanting customers. The critic 
who has decided how many and what kind 
of synchronous events must be furnished 
by the prophet, in order to secure his cred- 



Concerning Destructive Criticism, 79 

ence as to authorship, will be left without 
a prophet or a Bible. 

The erection of an arbitrary law, by 
which to interpret history or prophecy in 
the Bible, is contrary to all treatment which 
secular literature receives from these same 
critics. 

From these strained, forced and unphilo- 
sophical methods of dealing with prophecy, 
we turn to the testimony of the inspired 
writers of the New Testament. God has 
provided some better thing than critical as- 
sumption as a basis of the confidence and 
comfort of his people, which we now pre- 
sent. 



VII. 

GOD'S REPLY TO THESE ASSU^IP- 
TIONS. 



''Nay but, O man, who art thou that re- 
pliest against Godf Rom. ix, 20. 

''At the mouth of two witnesses, or at 
the mouth of three witnesses, shall the mat- 
ter he established,'' Deut, xix, 75. 

"Whatsoever things were written afore- 
time were written for our learning, that 
we through patience and comfort of the 
Scriptures might have hope!' Rom, xv, 4, 

"Now all these things happened unto 
them for ensamples; and they are written 
for our admonition, upon whom the ends of 
the world are come," i Cor, x, 11, 

"My people shall know my name; there- 
fore they shall know in that day that I am 
he that doth speak. Behold, it is L" Isaiah 
Hi, 6, 



GOD'S REPLY TO THESE ASSUMP- 
TIONS. 

In the New Testament we have in the 
Gospels and the Epistles God's teachings 
concerning the Old Testament. The writers 
of the New Testament had the promise of 
our Lord that ''The Comforter, which is 
the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send 
in my name, he shall teach you all things, 
and bring all things to your remembrance, 
whatsoever I have said unto you." (John 
xiv. 26.) 

In the fulfillment of this promise they 
have given us the testimony of God, the 
Holy Spirit, on all the subjects of which 
they have written. What, therefore, is 
their testimony concerning the author of 
the book of Isaiah? Did that prophet write 
the book, or is it a patched book from va- 
rious authors? 

Matthew, the inspired author of the book 
that bears his name, quotes from Isaiah 
xl. 3 : " The voice of him that crieth in the 
wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, 
make straight in the desert a highway for 
our God/' (See Matt. iii. 3.) 



84 The Testimony of the Bible 

The critics inform us that this prophecy 
was not given by Isaiah, but by some un- 
known prophet, and was bound up with 
Isaiah's prophecies, and labeled as his. 
Matthew informs us that it was a prophecy 
concerning John the Baptist, and was given 
by Isaiah himself, and not by another. He 
says (iii. 3), referring to John the Baptist: 
''For this is he that was spoken of through 
Isaiah the prophet, saying: 
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
Make ye ready the way of the Lord, 
Make his paths straight.'' (R. V.) 
Again, in Matt. viii. 17, the author of 
this gospel quotes a passage from the fifty- 
third chapter of Isaiah. The critics have 
handed this fifty-third chapter over to 
the Unknown prophet or prophets. They 
affirm again that the theme and literary 
style of this chapter are such that Isaiah 
could not have written it. They base their 
affirmation on their own literary discov- 
eries, their ability to detect the footprints 
of some other prophet, though they do not 
inform us who that prophet is. They are 
sure that it was not Isaiah, for they have 
already placed him under such limitations 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 85 

that, according to their critical decision, he 
could not write the chapter. Of course, 
their conclusion is reached by practically 
denying the Holy Spirit's agency — logically 
denying that ''holy men of God spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Spirit/' (2 
Peter i. 21.) 

The inspired author of the gospel of 
Matthew had a different conception of the 
Holy Spirit's agency in giving prophecy to 
the world. He had not discovered the lim- 
itations of the prophet, which the critics 
profess to have lound. Hence, in giving 
the history of God's gracious and miracu- 
lous work of casting out demons and heal- 
ing the sick, he declares (Matt. viii. 17), 
without a shadow of a mistake, that Christ 
wrought these miracles, ''that it might be 
fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah 
the prophet, saying. Himself took our in- 
firmities and bare our diseases." (See also 
Isaiah liii. 4.) 

As Matthew is on the witness stand, the 
reader will be interested to hear his testi- 
mony further. In his gospel (xii. 17-21) 
he testifies that Isaiah wrote the forty- 
second chapter of the prophecy that bears 



86 The Testimony of the Bible 

his name. Matthew quotes the first four 
verses of the chapter, in explanation of the 
fact that Christ found it necessary during 
his ministry to retire from the pubhc ex- 
citement which his teaching and miracles 
had produced. He says that Christ pursued 
that course "that it might be fulfilled 
which was spoken through Isaiah the 
prophet, saying, Behold my servant whom 
I have chosen; my beloved in whom my 
soul is well pleased; I will put my Spirit 
upon him and he shall show judgment to 
the Gentiles. He shall not strive nor cry, 
neither shall any man hear his voice in the 
streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, 
and smoking fiax shall he not quench, till 
he send forth judgment unto victory, and 
in his name shall the Gentiles trust.'' 

This quotation is from Isaiah, forty- 
second chapter, and first part of the chapter. 
The reader will remember that the critics 
deny this testimony of Matthew. This 
forty-second chapter which he (Matthew) 
assigns to Isaiah is a part of the book 
which they affirm has come to us from some 
unknown source. 

It is worthy of repetition that three times 



Concerning Destructive Criticism, 87 

Matthew, the inspired author of the first 
gospel, has affirmed without equivocation 
that the passages which he quotes were 
''spoken by Isaiah the prophet/' The crit- 
ics say "No." Which will the reader be- 
lieve ? 

The author of the third gospel, describ- 
ing our Lord's visit to Nazareth, says : ''As 
his custom was, he went into the synagogue 
on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to 
read. And there was delivered unto him 
the book of the prophet Isaiah, and when 
he had opened the book, he found the place 
where it was written. The Spirit of the 
Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed 
me to preach the gospel ; he hath sent me to 
heal the broken hearted, to preach deliver- 
ance to the captives, and recovery of sight 
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are 
bruised, to preach the acceptable year of 
the Lord.'' Luke iv. 16-19. 

Luke informs us that it was ''the book 
of the prophet Isaiah'' from which our 
Savior made this quotation. We turn to 
the prophecy and discover that the passage 
is found in the sixty-first chapter and first 
and second verses of the book. But the crit- 



88 The Testimony of the Bible 

ics who are correcting our Bible for us ( ?) 
inform us that their same literary discovery 
holds good here — that this part of the book 
was not written by Isaiah. They assume to 
hand over this part of the book, knowingly, 
to the ^'Great Unknown" and unknowable 
prophets. The testimony of Luke contra- 
dicts the critics. He gives Isaiah full credit 
as the author of the statement. The reader 
v/ill doubtless accept the fact that the in- 
spired writer, the author of Luke's gospel, 
obtained his information at first hand, from 
God himself, who inspired the record. 

Again Luke contradicts the critics when 
he puts on record Philip's interview with 
the eunuch, as we find it in Acts viii. 30-33. 
When Philip joined himself to the eunuch, 
by direction of the Spirit, he "heard him 
reading Isaiah the prophet (Isaiah liii. 7), 
and said, Understandest thou what thou 
readest?'' * * * Now, the passage of 
the Scriptures which he was reading was 
this : '' He was led as a sheep to the slaugh- 
ter and as a lamb before his shearer, dumb, 
so he opened not his mouth. In his hu- 
miliation his judgment was taken away: 
his generation who shall declare? For his 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 89 

life is taken from the earth/' (R. V., Acts 

viii. 30-33O 

Our critics have robbed Isaiah of this 
passage. It was written, so their Hterary 
skill claims to have discovered, by some 
prophet who has successfully concealed 
himself, and finally disappeared from sight, 
leaving no hope that his name will ever be 
discovered. 

Luke informs us that he knew who the 
prophet was that penned that touching de- 
scription of the coming Messiah, and that 
his name was Isaiah. This question he has 
settled. 

Returning to the gospel of John, we are 
furnished the testimony of one of whom 
our Lord said, '''\^erily I say unto you, 
Among them that are born of woman, there 
hath not risen a greater than John the Bap- 
tist.'' This witness comes before us, there- 
fore, indorsed by Jesus Christ himself, 
^^The faithful Witness." We ask him, 
therefore, to speak for himself as to who 
is the author of that part of prophecy which 
the critics are attempting to wrest from 
Isaiah. 

When the priests and Levites came to 



90 The Testimony of the Bible 

ask him, ''Who art thou? That we may 
give an answer to them that sent us. What 
sayest thou of thyself?'' he repHed, ''I am 
the Voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
make straight the way of the Lord, as said 
Isaiah the prophet,'' (See John i. 22, 23, 
R. V.) 

This was his testimony, first concerning 
himself. We believe him. And this was 
his testimony, secondly, concerning the au- 
thor of the prophecy which he quoted: 
''Isaiah the prophet/' 

Again we believe him, and as confidently, 
concerning the second statement as the first. 
And the Apostle John was so confident of 
its truth that he put it on record. 

The passage quoted (Isaiah xl. 3) be- 
longs to that part of the book which our 
critic and his fellow critics have decided 
was predicted by some stray prophet, un- 
known to the world, to the Jewish people 
or the church. We prefer the statement of 
John the Baptist, and its indorsement by 
John the Apostle. 

The reader will now recall that we have 
already heard Matthew's corroboration of 
the testimony of John the Baptist concern- 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 91 

ing Isaiah's claim to this prophecy. (See 
Matt. iii. 3.) 

In the gospel of the Apostle John he 
puts on record his personal testimony con- 
cerning the author of the book bearing 
Isaiah's name. Explaining the amazing un- 
belief of the Jews, he says (xii. 37, 38) : 
"But though he (Jesus) did so many signs 
before them, yet they believed not on him : 
that the word of Isaiah the prophet might 
be fulfilled, which he spake: 

*'Lord, who hath believed our report? 
and to v/hom hath the arm of the Lord been 
revealed?" (R. V.) 

The reader will see that this inspired 
writer of the fourth gospel is quoting from 
Isaiah liii. i, thus testifying to Isaiah's au- 
thorship. 

Our literary critics have decided that this 
chapter was forbidden ground to Isaiah, 
that, if we are to believe them, he had no 
connection with this prophecy. 

We are asked to believe that the author 
of this fifty-third chapter, the most minute 
and tender prophecy concerning the Mes- 
siah's suflferings for his people, and rejec- 
tion by them, has dropped out of sight! 



92 The Testimony of the Bible 

We are asked to believe that the name of 
the prophet who gave this dramatic picture 
of what was to take place on Calvary seven 
hundred years later, has been lost in the fog 
of the passing centuries! We are asked 
to believe that the name of the author of 
the first thirty-nine chapters, the less im- 
portant part of the book, has been pre- 
served, but oblivion has overtaken the au- 
thor of the book from the fortieth chapter 
to the end. 

The assumption is an affront to the in- 
telligence of the ordinary reader of the 
Bible. It is an impeachment of the honesty 
of the authors of the gospels, which the 
unshaken faith of God's people can never 
concede. 

The reader can now sum up the testimony 
of Matthew, Mark (see i. 3, R. V.), Luke, 
John, and John the Baptist, all of whom 
with one voice contradict the critics. We 
also prefer, with these witnesses, to dis- 
credit the men who are picking out clauses, 
verses and chapters here and there, and 
guessing them off to authors of their own 
invention, who have never been known or 
heard of. 



Concerning Destmctive Criticism. 93 

It is not sufficient for the critics to say 
that these New Testament authors knew 
better, but defered to popular sentiment, 
based on tradition. That can not satisfy 
our estimate of them as God's divinely ap- 
pointed teachers, chosen to make record 
of the momentous truth on which the salva- 
tion of a lost world hangs. Men, ready to 
lay down their lives for the truth, were not 
the men to play fast and loose with the 
Word of God, in deference to a supposed 
popular sentiment. 

Further, our critical friends have as- 
sumed to decide for the prophets that they 
must prophesy out of their immediate sur- 
roundings in such a marked way, with such 
continued reference -to the events of the 
period, that the prophecy must be located in 
that period. If the critic can not find these 
particular local earmarks, he must push the 
prophecy to a point of time with which he 
can make it synchronize, and which will 
satisfy his literary judgment. By this law 
of determining dates, the critics claim that 
the book of Isaiah is a composite work, 
produced by different authors and at differ- 
ent times. 



94 Tile Testimony of the Bible 

On this assumption the latter part of the 
book of Revelation was not a revelation 
to the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. 
The first part of the book may be adjudged 
as his. But presently the matter of the 
book passes into a realm beyond the time 
and circumstances that belong to that per- 
iod, hence may not claim him as its author. 
An assumption that sets aside the claims of 
Scripture, as to authorship, in order to har- 
monize the book with one's literary and 
critical judgment, may be dismissed on its 
own lack of merit. 

The proposed law above referred to, as 
a method of locating prophecy as to time, 
or determining the author, is arbitrary, and 
an absurd attempt to destroy all the testi- 
mony of inspired writers, who have settled 
the question of authorship and the date of 
prophecy. 



VIII. 

THE HISTORICITY OF THE BOOK 
OF JONAH. 



''According to the word of the Lord God 
of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his 
servant Jonah, the son of Amittai the 
prophet, which was of Gath-hepher/' 2 
Kings xiv. 25, 

''The word of the Lord came unto Jonah, 
the son of Amittai, saying. Arise, go to 
Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it: 
for their zvickedness is come up before mef' 
Jonah i. i, 2. 

"So Jonas arose and went unto Nineveh, 
according to the word of the Lord/' Jonah 
Hi 3. 

"And he cried, and said. Yet forty days, 
and Nineveh shall be overthrown/' Jonah 
Hi. 4. 

"So the people of Nineveh believed God," 
Jonah Hi. 5. 

"And God saw their works, that they 
turned from their evil way; and God re- 
pented of the evil that he had said he would 
do unto them, and he did it not/' Jonah 
Hi. 10. 

" The men of Nineveh shall rise in judg- 
ment with this generation, and shall con- 
demn it, because they repented at the 
preaching of Jonas/' Matt. xH. 41. 



THE HISTORICITY OF THE BOOK 
OF JONAH. 

The book of Jonah has been attacked by 
the destructive critics. Its historicity has 
been denied. The critics, though certain of 
ahnost all of their objections to the Bible, 
have not all decided whether it is ''based 
on history, or is a nature myth." Keunen 
has discovered (?) that it is ''a product 
of the opposition to the strict and exclusive 
policy of Ezra tov^ard heathen nations." 
Objection is made to the historical state- 
ments of the book on various grounds. 
The objector interposes this difficulty: 
''Can we conceive of a heathen city being 
converted by an obscure foreign prophet?" 

This objection is of kin to that which can 
not conceive that by a creative act of God 
the universe was brought into being, or the 
inspired statement that "the worlds were 
framed by the word of God." It is the 
presence of the supernatural everywhere 
that is beyond the conception of the critics. 

Again, they interpose the difficulty: 
"How could the Ninevites give credence to 
7 



98 The Testimony of the Bible 

a man who was not a servant of Ashur?'' 
Without presenting the multipHed dif- 
ficulties that rationaHsm has supposedly dis- 
covered, they may be summed up in their 
statement substantially, that the book of 
Jonah is not historical. Whatever else it 
may be, whether legend, myth or allegory, 
it is not history. 

We turn again from the fancies of "Ex- 
pert Scholarship'' to the testimony of the 
Bible concerning itself. We discover that 
the prophet Jonah is referred to several 
hundred years before the critics have per- 
mitted him to live. It is written in 2 Kings 
xiv. 25 that Jeroboam the Second secured 
the restoration of certain territory, "ac- 
cording to the word of the Lord God of 
Israel, which he spake by the hand of his 
servant Jonah, the son of Amittai the 
prophet, which was of Gath-hepher.'' 

The name of Jonah, of his family, and 
the place of residence of his family, are 
definitely stated. The work is accom- 
plished "by the hand of his servant Jonah,'' 
and the date of its accomplishment, are so 
precisely recorded that these statements 
could have been disproved had they been 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 99 

false. Hence, there was a person named 
Jonah. 

Our Lord has settled the questions of the 
personality and work of Jonah, if anything 
can be settled for unbelief. He has affirmed 
the historical certainty of the two important 
events which critical assumption declares 
impossible. The critical Jews were demand- 
ing a sign from our Lord. He had wrought 
many miracles, but they wanted something 
beyond what he had given, a miracle for 
their special benefit. He declined to gratify 
them. Of that generation he said: ''There 
shall no sign be given it, but the sign of 
the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three 
days and three nights in the whale's belly, 
so shall the Son of man be three days and 
three nights in the heart of the earth." 
(Matt. xii. 39-41.) As Jonah was miracu- 
lously preserved for three days and nights 
and was brought forth, as by a resurrection, 
so was the Son of man to be brought forth 
from the tomb. His resurrection was to be 
the crowning miracle, the sign forever con- 
fronting his nation. Jonah's deliverance 
from apparent death was such a miracle as 
convinced the Ninevites that he had a mes- 



lOO The Testimony of the Bible 

vSage from God for them, so Christ's resur- 
rection was to become the keystone of the 
arch on which the whole structure of the 
redemptive system should rest. "He was 
raised for our justification." (Rom. iv. 25.) 

The reader will mark that our Lord re- 
ferred to the miraculous preservation of 
Jonah, and his deliverance, as a historical 
event, recorded in the first and second chap- 
ters of the book of Jonah, not as a myth or 
allegory, but as a historical fact. ''As Jonah 
was three days and three nights in the 
whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be 
three days and three nights in the heart of 
the earth." As the one, so the other. As 
certainly and literally the one, so certainly 
and literally the other. If Jonah's preser- 
vation and coming forth from the fish that 
God had prepared was only a legend, then 
was Christ's death, burial, and resurrection 
a legend. And in consistency with their 
critical theory some of the rationalists have 
reduced them both to legend. For as one 
was, so was the other to be. The statement 
is plain, definite narrative, from which there 
is no escape. 

Others of the critical school hold to the 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. loi 

historical verity of Christ's burial and res- 
urrection, but assert that he made use of 
the assumed legend concerning Jonah, as we 
might illustrate any fact in history by a 
familiar statement from fiction. To such 
an assumption we reply that our Lord was 
dealing with tremendous realities, such as 
could not be belittled by turning for sup- 
port or illustration to a fictitious story. He 
quoted from Old Testament history to illus- 
trate and enforce New Testament truth. 
On another occasion he said: ''As Moses 
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even 
so must the Son of man be lifted up that 
whosoever believeth on him should not per- 
ish, but have eternal life." Shall we hand 
over to legendary literature the great his- 
torical fact of the twenty-first chapter of 
Numbers — God's deliverance from the fiery 
serpents — by one look at the uplifted brazen 
serpent by the hand of Moses? We may as 
well reduce one passage to fiction as the 
other. ''As Jonah * ^ * three days 
and nights, so the Son of man. As the 
serpent was lifted up, so the Son of man 
shall be lifted up.'' This comparison has a 
definite meaning. The apostle uses it in his 



I02 The Testimony of the Bible 

Epistle to the Romans, fifth chapter and 
twelfth verse. ''As by one man sin entered 
into the world, ^ ^ ^ ^q death passed 
upon all men for that all have sinned." As 
certainly as sin entered into the world by 
one man, so certainly it resulted that death 
passed upon all men. As Christ's remain- 
ing in the grave three days was not a fiction, 
so Jonah's three days and nights in the 
great fish that God had prepared was not a 
fiction. 

Our Lord further certifies to the histo- 
ricity of the book of Jonah by his reference 
to the great prophet's preaching. The crit- 
ic's objection is thus stated : ''Can we con- 
ceive of a heathen city being converted by 
an obscure foreign prophet?" 

Of course, the objection to the record of 
that mighty moral movement comes from 
those who have counted God out of Jonah's 
preaching. If they can eliminate the divine 
power from that event, they can easily hand 
the whole record over to what they are 
pleased to call the '' folk lore of the Bible." 
Here, as ever, the critic must rid the Scrip- 
tures of the supernatural. 

But our Savior knew that ''power be- 



Concerning Destructive Criticism, 103 

longeth unto God" (Psa. Ixii. 2), and he 
put on record the repentance of the Nine- 
vites, saying, ''The men of Nineveh shall 
rise up in judgment with this generation 
and condemn it, because they repented at 
the preaching of Jonah/' (Matt. xii. 41.) 
But if the book is not history, our Lord's 
statement is false, for he says the Ninevites 
did repent. 

There is no rational possibility of deny- 
ing our Lord's positive statement without 
impeaching his veracity. 

His words authorize the following con- 
clusions : 

1. There was a prophet whose name was 
Jonah, as is stated in 2 Kings xiv. 25. He 
was not a myth or figment, but a prophet 
whose personality is authenticated by Christ 
himself. 

2. There was a city of Nineveh. The 
skepticism of other days denies the exist- 
ence of Nineveh. So completely was the 
prophecy concerning the destruction of 
Nineveh fulfilled that the enemies of God's 
Word refused to believe that the city had 
ever existed, until the excavations of the 
last century revealed the hidden ruins. But 



I04 The Testimony of the Bible 

the word of God was true, and in God's 
time Nineveh was revealed. 

3. God sent this same prophet Jonah to 
Nineveh to preach. Christ tells us what 
took place under "the preaching of Jonah.'' 
It terminated in a great awakening and 
reformation, for 

4. ''The men of Nineveh * ^ * re- 
pented at the preaching of Jonah." 

Did the Savior know what lie was talking 
about ? Did he know the truth of the state- 
ment he made? Or, knowing (as is as- 
sumed) that there were no such events, did 
he resort to fiction in order to assert the 
certainty of his own resurrection ? If the 
latter, then we must correct his statement 
concerning Jonah, and read : "As Jonah has 
been fictitiously represented to have been 
three days and three nights in the whale's 
belly, so, fictitiously, shall the Son of man 
be three days and three nights in the heart 
of the earth." 

Our Sunday-school teachers, with the 
words of Christ before them, will be able 
to give the critics important information. 
They can report the certainty of the his- 
torical facts. 



IX. 

RADICAL EXPOSITION. 



''Among you also there shall he false 
teachers, who shall privily bring in destruc- 
tive heresies, denying even the Master that 
bought them, bringing upon themselves 
swift destruction/' (R. V.) 2 Peter ii. i. 

""O Timothy, keep that which is com- 
mitted to thy trust, avoiding profane and 
vain babblings, and oppositions of science 
falsely so called, zvhich some professing 
have erred concerning the faith:' i 7Hm. 
vi. 20, 21, 

''Take heed unto thyself, and unto the 
doctrine; continue in them/' i Tim. iv. 16. 

"We have also a more sure word of 
prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take 
heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark 
place until the day daium, and the daystar" 
arise in your hearts/' 2 Peter i, Jp. 



RADICAL EXPOSITION. 

The destructive critics have pushed their 
work far into the field of both prophecy 
and exposition. They have relegated to the 
domain of mythology the clear and un- 
equivocal historical statements of Scripture. 
Where the intrusion of their mythological 
theory was too large a demand to make on 
our credulity, they have attempted a radical 
exegesis in proof of their assumptions. 

They claim to have discovered that the 
Church in all the past has misconceived 
the first prophetic promise given to man. 
That promise was given to our first parents 
immediately after the fall. God said to the 
serpent (Gen. iii. 15) : "I will put enmity 
between thee and the woman, and between 
thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy 
head and thou shalt bruise his heel.'' 

Our critics have two objections to the in- 
terpretation that has always been given and 
maintained by Christian scholars and by the 
Church as a whole. First, that ''the seed 
of the woman" does not refer to the Mes- 
siah, but to the human race, which is to 



io8 The Testimony of the Bible 

bruise the serpent's head. Second, that the 
serpent engaged in seducing Eve, and here 
placed under the curse, does not refer to 
Satan. 

In replying to the objection that the Mes- 
siah is not referred to in the passage, let it 
be said, the objectors should have known 
their Hebrew. In the phrase, ''It shall 
bruise thy head,'' the pronoun ''it" is in 
the masculine gender in the original He- 
brew, and is a pronoun referring to a per- 
son. It is so translated in the Revised 
Version. ''He shall bruise thy head and 
thou shalt bruise his heel." It is not the 
human race, but he, an individual person. 
This person was not to be the seed of the 
man, but of the woman. 

The announcing angel said to Mary, " The 
Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the 
power of the Highest shall overshadow 
thee: therefore also that holy thing which 
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son 
of God." (Luke i. 35.) The child to be 
born was to be literally and truly " the seed 
of the woman/' and that was the Messiah, 
the only person of the entire human race 
of whom that could be said. 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 109 

We are not left, however, to an exegetical 
statement alone, although that is absolutely 
unequivocal. The promise was repeated 
to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, and to 
David. The seed of the woman was to be 
the Messiah, the Christ, triumphing over 
the power of Satan. The race has not 
triumphed over Satan, but has been a 
failure. 

The Holy Spirit has settled the question 
in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, iii. 16: 
"Now to Abraham and his seed were the 
promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, 
as of many (or, the human race), but as of 
one, and to thy seed zvhich is Christ." On 
the human side, our Savior was of the line 
of Abraham, and David, but was singularly 
and literally ''the seed of the woman," being 
the Son of God. 

He called himself the Son of man only 
in the sense that he was born of her who 
was of the race of man. He ever claimed 
God as his Father, and in a different sense 
from that in which men can claim God as 
Father. His claim to be the Son of God 
was the claim to be equal with God, which 
no created being dare make. 



no The Testimony of the Bible 

The Holy Spirit further declares, in He- 
brews ii. 14: "For as much then as the 
children are partakers of flesh and blood, he 
also himself likewise took part of the same, 
that through death (his death on the cross) 
he might destroy him (Satan) that had the 
power of death '^ — ''bruise the serpent's 
head/' It was Satan that inflicted death. 
He was the first higher critic who changed 
and denied the word of God, saying to the 
woman, *'Ye shall not die." Through his 
denial of the word of God, he received the 
woman and brought spiritual death on the 
race. This was the work of Satan, accord- 
ing to the New Testament teaching. He is 
the same that God calls the serpent in the 
third chapter of Genesis. For the Holy 
Spirit informs us, in 2 Cor. xi. 3, that ''the 
serpent beguiled Eve," and states definitely 
who the serpent is — "that old serpent called 
the devil and Satan, who deceiveth the 
whole world." (Rev. xii. 9.) 

Having God's testimony that the serpent 
and the devil are one and the same, we are 
prepared for the mark which our Lord puts 
on him, "A murderer from the beginning 
* * * and no truth in him." He had 



Concerning Destructive Criticism, in 

always sought to pervert and discredit the 
word of God. He suggested to Eve that 
she did not understand God's command ; she 
had taken it too Uterally, which is a popular 
form of attacking the Bible to-day. ''Yea, 
hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree 
of the garden?" Are you not mistaken? 
And when he had injected the doubt into 
the mind of Eve, had gained an advantage, 
he seized it and boldly denied the word of 
God, "Ye shall not die.'' He is an artful 
critic and successfully did his deadly work. 
Hence, the first great promise which God 
gave to the fallen pair, and through them 
to the race, set the seed of the woman, the 
Messiah, in conflict with ''that old serpent 
called the devil and Satan." That promise 
is now in process of fulfillment, and must 
reach its final consummation when John's 
apocalyptic vision is fulfilled, "And the 
devil that deceived them (the nations) shall 
be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, 
where the beast and the false prophet are, 
and shall be tormented day and night, for- 
ever and ever." 



X. 

GOD HIS OWN INTERPRETER. 



''To the law and to the testimony: if 
they speak not according to this word, it is 
because there is no light in them/' Isaiah 
via. 20, 

"' Thy law is the truth f' Psa, cxix. 142, 

''Thy testimonies that thou hast com- 
manded are righteous and very faithful/' 
Psa. cxix. 1^8. 

"Lead me in thy truth and teach me/' 
Psa, XXV, 5. 

"The word of our God shall stand for- 
ever." Isaiah xl, 8, 

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but 
my zvord shall not pass azvay/' Mark 
xiii, 31, 



GOD HIS OWN INTERPRETER. 

The destructive critics have assaulted the 
most precious prophetic scriptures. It has 
been already stated that the final aim of 
skepticism is against the person of Christ. 
If the unbelieving world can be rid of both 
the prophecies concerning Christ, and the 
history of his life, his sacrificial death and 
resurrection, they will be rid of that stum- 
bling stone which they have been pleased to 
call the ''much-abused supernaturalism.'' 
Hence, the strenuous effort is made to de- 
stroy predictive prophecy concerning the 
person of the Son of God. The fact that 
there are more than thirty-five prophecies, 
containing one hundred and thirty distinct 
counts, concerning the birth, the life, the 
teaching, the death, and the resurrection of 
our Lord, greatly disturbs the critics. 

The prophecy of Isaiah ix. 6 has been 
troublesome. The prophet foretold, in dis- 
tinct and unimpeachable language, the com- 
ing of the Messiah: ''For unto us a Child 
is born, unto us a Son is given : and the 
government shall be upon his shoulder : and 



Ii6 l^he Testimony of the Bible 

his name shall be called Wonderful, Coun- 
sellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting 
Father, The Prince of Peace." 

A critic who claims to be loyal to the 
word of God says concerning this passage: 
"The prophet always paints upon the can- 
vas the events of the near future. I can 
not believe that Isaiah ix. 6 refers to a far- 
ofif event, because it would not give comfort 
to his people at that time.'' As this proph- 
ecy was given more than seven hundred 
years before the coming of the Messiah, 
our critic concludes that it could be of no 
practical benefit to Israel, hence, must have 
referred to some person who must soon 
appear. 

To affirm that this promise of the Mes- 
siah long before his coming ''would not 
give comfort to his people'' is mere assump- 
tion. The time of his coming was not an- 
nounced, and the people were to live in ex- 
pectation of the event, which expectation 
was to be their stay and comfort. This 
assumption would vitiate the promise of his 
coming made to our first parents Gen. iii. 
15, the promises made to Moses; Deut. 
xviii. 15, the predictions made in Psa. xxii. 



Concerning Destructive Criticism, iiy 

I, 8, i6, i8^ in which his cry on the cross, 
the taunt of his enemies, the piercing of his 
hands and feet, and the parting of his rai- 
ment among the soldiers, were all predicted. 

The prediction that ''Thou, Bethlehem 
Ephratah, though thou be little among the 
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall 
he come forth unto me, he that is to be the 
Ruler of Israel ; whose goings forth have 
been of old, from everlasting'' (Micah v. 2) 
was made seven hundred years before the 
coming of Christ, and, according to critical 
assumption, could not refer to our Savior, 
"'because it would not give comfort to his 
people." 

Indeed, no prophecy preceding the time 
of Isaiah ix. 6 could be allowed to refer to 
Christ, on the assumption of the critic. 
More than this, the prediction of Christ's 
second advent is vitiated by this assump- 
tion. It was more than eighteen hundred 
years ago that the angels said to the dis- 
ciples who were steadfastly watching his 
ascension: "This same Jesus w^ho is taken 
from you into heaven shall so come in like 
manner as ye have seen him go into 
heaven." Was there no comfort to the dis- 



ii8 The Testimony of the Bible 

ciples in the promise of his return, though 
they did not Hve to witness it? Paul, en- 
larging on the promises of Christ's return, 
said to the Thessalonians : ''Wherefore 
comfort one another with these words." 

Let us now consider the prophecy in its 
context. The prophecy of the seventh and 
eighth chapters is projected on through the 
ninth. The first verse of this chapter pre- 
dicts some reHef of the former sufferings 
of the people for their sins. 

"The people that walked in darkness 
(verse 2) have seen great light." The 
prophet informs us who it was, to whom 
this light should come. The inhabitants of 
"the land of Zabulon and the land of Neph- 
thalim," which embraced the region of Gali- 
lee, in which the larger portion of Christ's 
ministry was exercised. Matthew quotes 
this scripture as fulfilled by the coming of 
our Savior. (See Matt. iv. 12-16.) "Now 
when Jesus had heard that John was cast 
into prison he departed into Galilee, and 
leaving Nazareth he came and dwelt in 
Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in 
the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim; 
that it might be fulfilled zvhich was spoken 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 119 

by Esaias the prophet, saying, The land of 
Zabulon and the land of Xephthalim, by 
way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of 
the Gentiles; the people which sat in dark- 
ness saw great light, and to them which sat 
in the region and shadow of death, light is 
sprung up." 

Undoubtedly the prophet looked into the 
future, when the coming of the ^vlessiah 
should bring the light of the gospel into that 
region so particularly described by him. 
And the inspired writer of the gospel of 
Matthew positively applies the context of 
Isaiah ix. 6 to our Lord. Then, proceeding 
with the explanation as to how the light 
should break forth in ''Galilee of the Gen- 
tiles," the prophet announces (verse 6) that, 
'* for unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son 
is given : and the government shall be upon 
his shoulder : and his name shall be called 
Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, 
The Everlasting Father, The Prince of 
Peace." 

The reader may well investigate the lan- 
guage of this prediction, "for unto us a 
Child is born." The ''for" is given as an 
explanation, a reason for the coming light 



120 The Testimony of the Bible 

to "Galilee of the Gentiles/' a region and a 
people that had been for generations "in 
the shadow of death/' The light was to 
break forth because a child was to be born 
and a son given. 

The announcement was made as if the 
event had taken place, though so far in the 
future. This is in accordance with the 
form of predictive prophecy, as in the fifty- 
third chapter of Isaiah, where the atoning 
work of Christ is spoken of as already ac- 
complished, though it remained to be 
achieved in the future. The prophet said 
of that work: "He hath borne our griefs 
and carried our sorrows. ^ ^ * He 
was wounded for our transgressions. 
* i{c 5K jjg ^^g bruised for our iniqui- 
ties. * ^ ^< The Lord hath laid on him 
the iniquities of us all." So it is stated in 
this prophecy: "For unto us a Child is 
born, unto us a Son is given/' for the prom- 
ise of God is the same to him as the fulfill- 
ment. His word is equivalent to his deed. 
It costs him as much to purpose and pledge 
as to fulfill his pledge. Hence, the proph- 
ecy speaks of the thing as done, since God 
has promised to do it. Seven centuries be- 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 121 

fore he came, the prophet said, ''unto us a 
Child is born, unto us a Son is given." 

Our critical friends can not inform us 
who was the " Son given." They can only 
say it must refer to some ''near future 
event/' Let our Book speak for itself. It 
gives no uncertain testimony. 

I. ''The government shall be upon his 
shoulder/' 

As already stated in the context, and 
affirmed by Matthew, it is he that should 
bring light to the Gentiles. There is only 
one who is himself "a light to lighten the 
Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel." 
(Luke ii. 32.) He said of himself: ''I am 
the light of the world." (John ix. 5. ) 

The government is his. He is the "Only 
Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of 
lords." (i Tim. vi. 15.) 

There is only One Potentate, One Ruler, 
One who could say, "All power is given 
unto me in heaven and in earth." (ilatt. 
xxviii. 18.) There is only One who could 
say, ''All things are delivered unto me of 
my Father." (Matt. xi. 2y.) There is 
only One of whom it could be said, ''Of the 
increase of his government and peace there 



122 The Testimony of the Bible 

^hall be no end/' and that is said of the 
''Child born unto us and the Son given," 
and is a part of the prophecy concerning 
him. (Isaiah ix. 7.) 

All earthly thrones have crumbled, all 
earthly kings and potentates have slept in 
the dust of death with the poorest of their 
subjects. But of this Son given Daniel 
says : '' There was given him dominion, and 
glory, and a kingdom, that all people, na- 
tions, and languages should serve him : his 
dominion is an everlasting dominion, which 
shall not pass away, and his kingdom that 
vx/hich shall not be destroyed." (Daniel 
vii. 14.) 

2. ''His name shall be called Wonder- 
fuir 

His name means his character, his per- 
son. He, himself, shall be called Wonder- 
ful, in a sense in which no other person 
can be entitled to that designation. Nico- 
demus accredited him as a wonderful in- 
structor. ''We know that thou art a 
teacher come from God, for no man can do 
these miracles that thou doest, except God 
be with him." (John iii. 2.) His enemies 
that were sent to arrest him quailed before 



Concerning Destnictk'e Criticism. 123 

him, and returned to the chief priests and 
Pharisees, saying, ''Never man spake Hke 
this man." 

A devout scholar has well said: ''The 
manner of his birth was wonderful; his 
humility, self-denial, and sorrows were 
wonderful ; his mighty works were wonder- 
ful ; his dying agonies were wonderful ; his 
resurrection and ascension were all fitted to 
excite admiration and wonder." 

3. ''His name shall be called * * * 
Counsellorf' 

This term plainly indicated his exalted 
wisdom and dignity. The wisdom of men 
comes to naught; their counsel shall perish 
with them. But there is One, who under- 
stands, who declares the end from the be- 
ginning. Of him it is said: "The counsel 
of the Lord standeth forever; the thoughts 
of his heart to all generations." (Psa. 
xxxiii. II.) He says of himself, "Counsel 
is mine and sound wisdom" (Prov. viii. 
14), and it was by his "determinate coun- 
sel and foreknowledge" that the glorious 
scheme of redemption and complete salva- 
tion from sin was planned and executed. 
Hence, he takes to himself the title, "The 



124 T'he Testimony of the Bible 

Great and Mighty God, ^ ^ t^ great in 
counsel, and mighty in work/' C Jer. xxxii. 
19.) Therefore, the Child that was to be 
born, the Son that was to be given, was to 
have a name, and *^his name shall be called 
* * '^ Counsellor/' 

4. ''His name shall be called "^^ * * 
The Mighty God/' 

And now we are face to face with the 
Lord Jehovah, and the positive statement 
that this was the promised Son. By what 
guessing or critical legerdemain one who 
claims loyalty to the word of God and ordi- 
nary intelligence can attempt to sweep away 
these definite and determinate statements, 
and crowd some insignificant worm of the 
dust into the place given to him who was 
in the beginning, who was with God and 
who was God, we can not comprehend. 

And still the prophet rises to the climax, 
to make sure that " wayfaring men, though 
fools, shall not err,'' and adds the prediction 
concerning the coming Son that, 

5. ''His name shall be called * * * 
The Everlasting Father/' 

The Revised Version gives the same ren- 
dering as the accepted version, and adds 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 12^ 

the marginal reading, "Father of Eternity/' 
The sense of the passage is the same. The 
name ''Everlasting Father'' was the name 
of the coming Son. He would be Wonder- 
ful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, not for a 
short time, but eternally, forever and ever 
— ''the same yesterday, to-day, and for- 
ever." His care of his people would never 
cease. 

The distinctions between the persons of 
the trinity were not made in the Old Testa- 
ment, as in the New. Jehovah was God, 
the Lord was God, and was known as Jeho- 
vah God, the Everlasting Father. The in- 
carnation of the second person in the trinity 
gave emphasis to his sonship, in order to 
put him in brotherly relation to us. 
"Wherefore he is not ashamed to call them 
brethren." 

This prophecy of Isaiah, however, conde- 
scends to accommodate our weakness, and 
necessity, and gives to the promised child 
the name by which he is recognized in the 
New Testament, for 

6. ''His name shall be called ^ ^ "^ 
The Prince of Peace/' 

At the birth of the Child the anorel choir 



126 The Testimony of the Bible 

sang ''Glory to God in the highest, and on 
earth peace, good will toward men." (Luke 
ii. 14.) ''Him hath God exalted with his 
right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to 
give repentance to Israel and forgiveness 
of sins." (Acts v. 31.) 

Isaiah spoke as he was moved by the 
Holy Spirit. He gave to Israel this assur- 
ing promise for their comfort, that the Seed 
of the woman, the Messiah, was coming not 
as a fallible, impotent ruler, but as a Prince 
and Savior. Israel failed to comprehend 
the glorious things predicted, and even yet 
they are not unfolded. But the Messiah 
did not fail to come, and, as predicted, he 
came at Bethlehem. Every phase of his 
life, and the mighty work of redemption, 
all that was predicted of his earthly career, 
has been accomplished. And now, at the 
right hand of the Father, he is moving to 
the final consummation of his purposes of 
redeeming grace. 

He will not be moved from his purposes 
by the uncritical attempts of rationalism to 
destroy the confidence of God's people in 
his revealed truth. We can move forward 
confidently in our work, knowing that noth- 



Concerning Destructive Criticism. 127 

ing shall pass from his Word until all is ful- 
filled. 

In this very brief study, in which God 
has spoken through the testimony of his 
Word, we have only touched a few points 
in which the truth of Scripture has been 
assailed. But the testimony of the Book 
settles all questions. We can well rest on 
the assurance, ''Forever O Lord, thy word 
is settled in heaven,'' and can not be un- 
settled on the earth. Our Sunday-school 
teachers and Christian young people can not 
fail to comprehend, and will rejoice in the 
fullness and power of God's testimony 
through prophet, apostle, and Christ the in- 
carnate Word. To him be honor, glory, 
and dominion forever. Amen. 



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